UIDAI CEO presentation as it happened: Ajay Pandey admits that 100 percent Aadhaar authentication success not possible

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• 16:08 (IST)

  Bench rises for the day. 

• 16:03 (IST)

  The Aadhaar Authentication System sees 4 crore authentications taking place every day.

  Pandey claims that the UIDAI does not collect details about the location, purpose and details of the transactions.

  Says auth data is not transmitted to CIDR!
  
  DYC J asks about meta data. Pandey says he will come to know. pic.twitter.com/cAM4V875ew

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:59 (IST)

  Ajay Bhushan Pandey claims that in the past 1.5 years there has not been a single request from the government to check for biometric data in the Aadhaar system.

  Pandey explains that once the data reaches the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) it cannot be shared with anyone.

• 15:55 (IST)

  Odd but true: UIDAI CEO claims that contact center receives almost 1.5 lakhs call every day.

  pic.twitter.com/45YDi2RklW

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:50 (IST)

  Judge asks that Aadhaar software is not Indian

  Pandey explains that only the biometric  match software is licensed from foreign companies.

  He claims that it comes from best in the industry, stating that the data center consists of 6,000 servers, which according to him is more than enough for the country's needs.

  Pandey says just because Banks use SAP or Oracle, does not mean Banks give data to Oracle.
  
  Says that these algorithms are their IP just like how Microsoft has IP in Windows.

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:45 (IST)

  A slide from the Aadhaar presentation on the enrollment process.

  pic.twitter.com/yf4l990wJe

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:44 (IST)

  An update on Aadhaar enrollment

  CEO of UIDAI claims that the government has taken a decision that Aadhaar enrollments going forward will only be conducted in banks, government offices  and post offices.

  Claims the cost of an Aadhaar card is less than a dollar.

  Pandey also claims that Aadhaar enrollment is taking place in prisons as well.

• 15:39 (IST)

  Ajay Bhushan Pandey agrees that 100% authentication success is not possible.

  Pandey says 100% auth success is NOT possible. Many variables, connectivity, machine not working, etc etc. But asserts that Aadhaar Act takes care of it.
  
  DYC J and Sikri J unconvincedly look on.

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:37 (IST)

  Judge Chandrachud asks UIDAI CEO about the denial of services, points out how the UIDAI won't know about it.

  J. Chandrachud: You'll know when there's an authentication failure in your database, but you won't know if there has been denial of service.
  ABP says that we tell entities to make exception handling measures.
  J. Chandrachud asks if there is any data on denial of services.

  — sflc.in (@SFLCin) March 22, 2018

• 15:33 (IST)

  UIDAI CEO explains to the judge what need to be done in the case of an Aadhaar database mismatch.

  ABP: Every Aadhaar card has a QR code, which prevents de duplication. The QR code will also show the person's photo. This method can also be resorted to if biometrics don't match.

  — sflc.in (@SFLCin) March 22, 2018

• 15:30 (IST)

  When a person's biometrics don't match the Aadhaar database, an error code is sent to the UIDAI who will prompt the person to update their data.

  Judge is not convinced about Pandey's answer.

  J. Chandrachud is not convinced with this method. Says this will lead to exclusion.

  — sflc.in (@SFLCin) March 22, 2018

• 15:26 (IST)

  Judge wants to know how biometric updates for children conducted?

  Also asks how does one know that their biometric data has changed? 

  DYC J asks how are biometric update done?
  
  Pandey says for children even aanganwadi workers can double up as aadhaar enrolment operators. Sikri J asks if they take Parental consent. Pandey says all legal compliance has to be taken care of.
  
  For others he says they can....

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:23 (IST)

  Even infants can have Aadhaar

  Shows this pic. DYC J asks about world bank report saying under 5 not having id.
  CEO says even infants can have aadhaar. We don't check for 182 day limit. There is an eyeroll in many of the lawyers in court. pic.twitter.com/2piTBWXcX9

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:21 (IST)

  Oddly enough, Pandey also claims that some of them misused the biometric exception.
  
  He claims that some of the blacklisted enrollers also registered a tree or hanuman. 

  The CEO confirms that they used to trust enrollment operators a lot earlier, but this is no longer the case now having become very strict about the same.

• 15:17 (IST)

  Court asks about what happened to the 49,000 blacklisted enrollers?

  Sikri J asks for 49000 enrollers blacklisted.
  
  Pandey says:
  People who took money for enrolments.
  People whose demographic data quality is very bad etc.
  
  Sikri J does not look convinced that 49000 would be this way.

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:16 (IST)

  The judge starts questioning the presentation by Pandey

  ​He claims that biometric data cannot be leaked out both during capture or before transmission.

  Pandey claims that all machines used by the enrollment agencies are STQC certified and that the software running on them is provided by the UIDAI.

• 15:11 (IST)

  How secure is Aadhaar?

  Ajay Bhushan Pandey explains to the court that the security of the data behind Aadhaar identification is really hard to break with the 2048-bit encryption standard.

  Pandey now good-mouthing his ecosystem.
  
  And the 2048-bit encryption. Says 256 is the standard..but Aadhaar has a much superior hardest to break 2048-bit encryption standard. pic.twitter.com/lpQr862MNO

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 15:08 (IST)

  UIDAI CEO explains Aadhaar security to the Supreme Court

  He starts of by explaining how secure Aadhaar is. He then states that there are 13 modes of Aadhaar authentication with 10 fingers (fingerprint scanning), 2 eyes (iris scanning) and lastly the otp.

• 15:00 (IST)

  Ajaya Bhushan Pandey explaining the features of Aadhaar

  Reads and explains each bullet from this slide. pic.twitter.com/5jWnrBIhZl

  — Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) March 22, 2018

• 14:56 (IST)

  Ajaya Bhushan Pandey provides a brief introduction as he commences his presentation

  ABP: In pre Aadhaar times, most people didn't have IDs. Even I didn't have an ID since I come from a small village. From 2000-09 also, people didn't have IDs. Voter ID also doesn't solve the problem. Children can't get it.

  — sflc.in (@SFLCin) March 22, 2018

• 14:48 (IST)

  The CEO of UIDAI has commenced his presentation and has stated that he will address Aadhaar security, its success rates, etc in his presentation today.

• 14:47 (IST)

  Welcome to today's Live Blog where we give you minute by minute updates from Ajaya Bhushan Pandey, CEO of UIDAI's presentation on Aadhaar and its security.
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