A First Information Report (FIR) has been filed by the Delhi police against CNN-News 18 journalist Debayan Roy, reports The Pioneer. CNN-News 18 report attempted to demonstrate that a person could get to obtain two separate Aadhaar enrollment numbers with the same set of biometrics. This is the first case where under the Aadhaar Act for two persons having the same biometric information.
#EXPOSED how vulnerable the system is that vows to provide identity to all Indians. Take a look. @SANKETUPA @debayanahroy pic.twitter.com/lw7dnVADKf
— News18 (@CNNnews18) March 22, 2017
Note that Roy did not get an Aadhaar card eventually and undoubtedly, the UIDAI will say that its core biometric system works as it detected two people trying to get with the same biometric information. But they would be missing the point.
What the CNN-News 18 report highlights the fact that persons entering the country illegally can get an Aadhaar card for as little as Rs 700. These persons can then open bank accounts, get mobile phone connections and get other documents needed to pass off as citizens in the country. It also highlighted that the information capturing at enrolment centres is not robust enough. There have been instances where people have got two separate Aadhaar cards for a same person and the same biometrics.
Eg: of multiple #Aadhaar numbers: P.V.Narayanan, from #Kerala, has 2 Aadhaars with 2 photos, but same biometrics, from 2 enrol centres (2/3) pic.twitter.com/8qm0U5JR0Y
— R. Ramakumar (@ramakumarr) March 23, 2017
And let’s not forget that dogs have also been issued Aadhaar cards as well.
Aadhar card issued to a dog named Tommy Singh http://t.co/QKxjZNiF4B pic.twitter.com/yuxd6Mx0QW
— Pradesh18 English (@Pradesh18Eng) July 2, 2015
Instead of fixing issues at enrollment centres, the UIDAI has been challenging people who have been exposing vulnerabilities in the system.
FIR against Sameer Kochhar
Remember, the Delhi police also filed a FIR against Skoch Group chairman Sameer Kochhar, allegedly for spreading rumours on the Internet about the vulnerability of the Aadhaar system. The FIR was filed by Yashwant Kumar, an assistant director general for the UIDAI. Kochhar showed in a video that the biometric identification system could be vulnerable to replay attacks.
As Vishwanath L noted, biometric authentication is essentially a method of image recognition (or pattern matching) and always results in a probabilistic score, rather than a clear match/mismatch.