Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Aug 4: A techie residing in Yeshwantpur here stands arrested for his role in the sensational Aadjaar data leak case. The suspect has been identified as Abhinav Srivastav from Kanpur. Abhinav had graduated from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and has been accused of developing a mobile app through which unhindered access is given to the entire Aadhaar data.

Complaint about leakage of information had been filed by Unique Identification Authority of India with High Grounds police station. The complaint, filed on July 26, was transferred to cyber crime police on July 29. The police however, confessed that involvement of an authentication user agency and KYC user agency with the suspect in leaking the date could not be established.

The investigators say that data in Aadhaar was accessed by using the e-hospital application in the server of National Informatics Centre. Being the authentication user agency, this centre has access to UIDAI data. E-hospital is a health information system designed to manage a number of hospital together.

The police claim that Abhinav who created the app, named Aadhaar-e-KYC verification, provided it in Google Playstore from where it can be downloaded. Users could easily gain access to all information related to Aadhaar through it. It is said that Srivatsava designed the app on his own after his work hours with Ola Cabs. The app was released in January this year, and by the time the leak was detected, about 50,000 people had downloaded the app on their cellphones, it is said.

The police are now investigating five other such apps developed earlier by him. The police have so far taken into custody four laptops, four cellphones, a tab, a CPU, six pen drivers and other material from the suspect's possession.