In September 2017, the Uttar Pradesh STF busted a network of hackers who had been able to bypass the UIDAI biometrics requirements to create fake Aadhaars. They created fake fingerprints, patched the enrolment software to bypass the requirement for iris scans and enrolled fake Aadhaars for
This is a translation of the Press Release by the STF at the time
Special Task Force, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow
Press Note No.- 203 Date- 10.09.2017
A gang of Hackers, trying to forge Aadhar Cards through Bypass and Finger Print Cloning of biometric standards as laid down by UIDAI, exposed.
A gang of Hackers, trying to forge Aadhar Cards through Bypass and Finger Print Cloning of biometric standards as laid down by UIDAI, has been exposed by a Special Task Force, Uttar Pradesh on 09.09.2017. A rare distinction was achieved when head of the gang Saurabh Singh, along with 10 other accused were arrested from Kanpur-Urban district.
Modus Operandi
Bypassing of set biometric standards of UIDAI through Clone Finger Print and tampering of Source Code of Application Client of UIDAI, establishing Fake Tampered Client Application, bypassing set Operator Authentication Process to make forged Aadhar Cards.
In January 2018, GoNews 24×7 followed up on this story to discover startling information. The mastermind of the scam is still at large and the equipment and cracked software used for bypassing the UIDAI safeguards and creating fake Aadhaars is still available. Neither the police nor the UIDAI were able to say how many fake Aadhaar cards were made by this gang. This is not surprising, given that once validated and enroled, there is virtually no way for UIDAI to know which Aadhaar ID is real and which one false unless they individually verify the all the details available with them. The STF believes that this software is in use by several different enrolment agents who conduct Aadhaar enrolments for UIDAI.
In other words, there is no telling how many such cards are in the system, how many of them are in use and how many more will be created.
I expect the UIDAI will continue to assure us that the data is safe, even if an unknown portion of it may be fake.
— source aadhaar.fail