UIDAI on old helpline row: Stay away from malicious campaign; Aadhaar has tremendous benefits to India

With rumours and scare of data breach mongering against Aadhaar in the backdrop of the appearance of an old Aadhaar helpline number in mobile phones, UIDAI in an official press release on Sunday said, "Google has added UIDAI’s old contact number 18003001947 by “inadvertently” and has since been continuing through sync mechanism".

The press release came a day after Google, the technology giant, apologised for installing the outdated UIDAI (Aadhaar) toll-free number and 112 distress helpline number in the Android phones of certain users without their consent.

The American technology company has also assured users of fixing the issue in the upcoming release of Set Up wizard. Users can also manually delete these numbers from their contact lists, Google added.

On Friday, social media had been flooded with public outrage for loading an old UIDAI helpline number in Android phones of several users. Initially, people questioned the Aadhaar body for this, but later UIDAI came out with a clarification and blamed “vested interest” for trying to create confusion in the public. Read Full Clarification Here

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Sunday's UIDAI press release too urged people to "stay away from such rumours and malicious campaign by vested interests".

"People should also not waste their time and time of their near and dear ones by forwarding or circulating such false and baseless rumours on their WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook," the Aadhaar body said.

"One must know that Aadhaar has caused tremendous benefits to our country and helped saved more Rs 90,000 Crore by preventing leakage and syphoning of benefits and subsidies meant for poor," UIDAI went on to claim further.

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"It has empowered 121 Crore people of India with a credible and secure identity which can be freely used anywhere, anytime and online. People are able to get their rightful entitlement directly into their bank accounts without any middlemen. It has also helped curb tax evasion, money launderers, benami accounts and shell companies," it concluded.