The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has stated that an unnecessary fear is being created about Aadhaar while clearing upon the fact that a number stored in the contact list cannot be used to steal data. It has further stated that Google accidentally added the UIDAI helpline in Android phones.

The UIDAI has told the public to not panic by way of a number of tweets and has asked to delete the old helpline number and replace it with 1947. It has gone on record to state that the helpline number which has been accidentally added is an old one and it can cause no harm to the public. Further, the rumours about the Aadhaar database being breached are completely false and the data under Aadhaar remains safe. The UIDAI has urged people to not waste their time in forwarding WhatsApp, Twitter or Facebook messages regarding the Aadhaar data breach as such news is baseless.

The abovementioned statements have been said after the public got puzzled with the UIDAI toll-free helpline number saved in their phones automatically on Friday. The UIDAI has clarified that it has not asked any telecom service provider to add the helpline number on mobile phones.

Google has finally cleared the air by apologising for accidentally and mistakenly adding the UIDAI number into the setup wizard of the android phones. It has said that the numbers can be deleted manually and promised to fix the issue in the future editions of its setup wizard.

As carried in LR