There was a furore among the Indian citizens regarding Aadhaar privacy. The whole UIDAI row started with a tweet that says "Check your phone contacts: You may see an entry for UIDAI with the number 1800-300-1947. This has been pushed mysteriously thru the back end? If correct It means agencies can push anything into your phone without your knowledge." (sic) This tweet came from an official handle on Twitter.
UIDAI Row: What Happened To Aadhaar?
Google has apologized for "inadvertently" loading the old UIDAI helpline and 112 helpline number into the 'setup wizard' of Android phones.
"We are sorry for any concern that this might have caused and would like to assure everyone that this is not a situation of an unauthorized access of their Android devices. Users can manually delete the number from their devices," the statement added.
An official confirmation coming from UIDAI said the number 1800-300-1947 appearing in the contact list of Android phones was an "outdated and invalid" helpline number. However, the official toll-free number of UIDAI 1947 is still functional for more than two years now.
The twitterati and other social media sites like Facebook were all panicked. A French hacker with a pseudo name Elliot Anderson tweeted this after UIDAI tweet. He said in his tweet that many people, with a different provider, with and without an #Aadhaar card, with and without the mAadhaar app installed, noticed that your phone number is predefined in their contact list by default and so without their knowledge. Can you explain why?