In India, the Aadhaar is a paperless online anytime-anywhere identity assigned to an Indian citizen to cover his/her entire lifetime. The verification of his identity is uses authentication devices which connect to the Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI’s) Central Identity Repository.  The Repository responds with only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response to the basic query-“Is the person who he/she claims to be?” based on the data available with UIDAI.   An Aadhaar Card or e-Aadhaar (electronic copy of Aadhaar) are provided to each enrolled citizen.  

According to the Free Press Journal in India, Aadhaar card holders have had their data exploited to the public domain since November.  Aadhaar data can be used to exploit many things such as post office accounts, rural employment and pension details, and banking information.  It is estimated that there are more than 1.4 million pensioners who are affected.  

According to Section 29 (4) of the Aadhaar Act, publishing Aadhar numbers of consumers is illegal and Hindustan Times reports that the Aadhar numbers were compromised by a programming glitch on the Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security website.  The data exposed includes the names, addresses, Aadhaar numbers and bank account info of beneficiaries of Jharkhand’s old age pension scheme.