In the past few months, there have been several reports citing security flaws in Aadhaar. There are also reports on Aadhaar numbers being displayed publicly, along with mobile phone numbers, financial details, which could expose citizens to fraud, including by use of such details to generate fake "Aadhaar cards", which is just a colour printout of one's Aadhaar information.

K Sudha, a senior activist with Human Rights Forum, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh shared the following incident to share her experience with poor security of Aadhaar, and how easily the "Aadhaar card", could be misused.

My daughter lost her "Aadhaar card" recently. She did not save her Aadhaar card number nor did she have a photocopy of it.  The mobile number that she mentioned in the Aadhaar card is also no longer accessible.
We approached Karvy consultants who said that it will not be possible for them to trace and generate a duplicate Aadhaar card without the number. But they suggested that Meeseva Kendras (an e-governance portal in Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana) might be able to trace it. So I approached a Meeseva Kendra in Visakhapatnam.
I told the above details to the Meeseva operator. He asked me to state my daughter's name and the pin code mentioned in the Aadhaar card. He took my mobile number. A One Time Password was generated and sent to my number. He could trace it and issue a duplicate. He charged Rs 100/- for this service.  For this, he did not give a receipt.  

What we are concerned about it that if I can get the duplicate Aadhaar card on her behalf by simply stating her Aadhaar number and pin code, anybody can do it.  The operator did not even seek my ID proof or any documents which would establish my relationship with my daughter. He didn't even bother to cross check my credentials while issuing the duplicate Aadhaar card. The fact that anybody could get my daughter's duplicate Aadhaar card is quite disquieting.

K Sudha,
Human Rights Forum (HRF).
Visakhapatnam