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India’s booming dark data economy

wiglaf1979 6y ago
Target of the article and target audience is Indian based but it isn't like they are the only country with varying degrees of this crap going on. I wonder how bad will it get before something more meaningful is done? Equifax survived leaking all that data. That still amazes me. Roughly 1 in 3 Americans had their PII leaked and they suffered minimal fines. Minimal in the fact that they certainly haven't been impacted operationally. If the laws can't punish that level of breach, they aren't going to punish the small potato sized ones either.
- kingo55 6y ago
  The intent behind spyware and Equifax's data leak are not comparable. On one hand we have companies selling spyware for unlawful data collection (like wiretapping). On the other hand Equifax collects the data through partnerships and data-sharing arrangements that (whilst opaque to essentially all consumers) is generally well-regulated. GDPR, the APPs and CCPA may curtail another Equifax incident but outright-illegal data collection needs a different solution.
kumarvvr 6y ago
Indian laws, especially concerning marriage and divorce are extremely skewed towards women, in the sense that "its her word against yours" is almost a law unto itself. Not long ago, a woman could go to a police station, give a complaint against her husband and family, and her husband, his relatives, even those living in other cities or even states had to be put in jail. There were numerous cases where educated urban women had their in laws families, including aging grandmothers put in jail, that was widely amplified by the media. This law, numbered 498a, wreaked havoc in the nation. The law was non bailable and once applied, cannot be withdrawn, even if the complainant wants to do so. So you had a situation where, some urban women misused this law, causing whole families to be put in jail, without even as much as a preliminary enquiry, leading to chaos and a sure shot way for the marriage to breakdown. In a country where going to jail holds a lot of social stigma, no husband would ever want to reconcile with a wife who sent him to jail. The law was, in intent, aimed at protecting vulnerable women, and in that intent, if used correctly, acts as a powerful deterrent to domestic violence, especially in rural areas. However, for almost a decade, it was mainly used by urban and semi urban, educated women as a revenge tactic. The results in conviction rates, less than 5% for these cases, and the rapid increase in their numbers, lead to calls for reform. About 2 years back, the Supreme Court of India gave judgements & directed police departments to stop automatic arrests in such cases and only to make arrests after detailed enquiry. It observed that the intent of law was to reconcile and rehabilitate broken marriages due to domestic violence, but has now become a tool to harass husbands. No wonder the society and men, especially ones with assets and reputations to lose, started to resort to such measures to protect themselves from false cases. Edit : I would also like to add that normal divorce laws are also skewed towards women. They get favorable rulings in alimony, asset distribution, etc. Many of these 498a cases ended up being petty quarrels, where the wife wants to exact revenge, this was observed by Supreme Court too. The women did get their revenge by making their husband's families churn through the Indian court systems which are notorious for being slow and draining people financially, however, over-zealous usage and application of the law lead to dilution of a powerful law against those who actually suffer from domestic violence.
- kylebenzle 6y ago
  We have the same problem (minus the in laws part) in the US, here its called the, "silver bullet" [0]. I've been writing and speaking about it for about a year now and the consensus seems to be no one cares what happens to men. [0] https://quillette.com/2019/04/16/divorce-and-the-silver-bullet/ https://quillette.com/2019/04/16/divorce-and-the-silver-bull...
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  What you described above is applicable today in most US states. Anybody can make a false allegation of domestic violence (DV) against their partner, and the police have to arrest somebody. Of course, it's usually the man that's arrested. Apparently a lot of divorce lawyers ask their female clients, "Are you sure he didn't do this or that?", and Calif. family courts are sending out blank forms to solicit DV complaints.
- zapdrive 6y ago
  I can vouch for every single word you just said. I know an Indian guy who was doing residency in the US. Got married in India, his wife got him arrested under 498a. He spent 10 months in jail! Ridiculous. I'm lucky my turn came after the supreme Court ruling you mentioned. Me or my family was not arrested, but we still had to shell up about 30,000 USD to my in laws, which was money will spent to be honest (as they agreed to give me full custody of my daughter). I could have prevented all this my bugging my ex's phone. Why? Because it all happened so suddenly. Everything came down raining without even a hint from my ex. If I had a little bit intelligence of what she was cooking up, I could have even saved the marriage.
  - dsohn0 6y ago
    Yeah your marriage could be saved if only you had bugged your wifes phone. Honestly what the fuck is wrong with Indians and shit culture there
  - blueblisters 6y ago
    > I could have prevented all this my bugging my ex's phone. Why? Because it all happened so suddenly. Everything came down raining without even a hint from my ex. I could sympathize until here. If you can't trust your partner why marry them in the first place? I find it hard to believe there weren't signs of things going wrong before she slapped a case on you.
p2pai 6y ago
A zero-knowledge way of sharing and validating data is the direction we shd move towards. So for example, how can i convince the apartment office that i am a good renter without sharing my personal information? Technology solutions exist for this, just not used.
- akritrime 6y ago
  Because trust has a social aspect to it, along with technical. The tech may exist, but it is going to be quite hard, if not impossible, to explain to an average person how cryptographically verified evidence of the piece of information is better than the person just accessing said information.
  - plibither8 6y ago
    Exactly. And also one of the main reasons why we don't see "blockchain" getting into the mainstream products. If consumers don't understand the true benefit (or even requirement) of it, it won't work. It's really tough to convince consumers to replace soul trust with cryptography.
    - mola 6y ago
      Block chain doesn't replace trust. If you are strong enough, i.e. control enough mining activity, you pretty much can do whatever you want. All it does, is formalize the same solutions for trust society has evolved. The downside is that it naturalizes the abuses and make them morally justified.
- Throwaway1771 6y ago
  Public/private keypairs. Solved problem since Nam.
  - sn41 6y ago
    Politics/business nexus. Unsolved problem since the dawn of time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deccanchargers 6y ago
Yes. In India, Privacy has lost much meaning. 1. Government mandates everyone to have Aadhaar card . In Aadhar card application form, there is option towards "sharing of data with third party" . Most People do tick that option. If they don't tick,there are chances that officers(mostly in bank where they take photo and biometric details of applicant) themselves tick that and apply for aadhar card. 2) Many colleges sell Students' Info, Phone number, Address for money. We get direct calls from coaching centre who didn't at all had our phone number. 3) When you buy something (say Domain name in Indian company),there are chances that they sell your information across many corporate interests without your consent.
- plibither8 6y ago
  One of the most infuriating thing for me was having my biometric information taken and shared at all the the competitive examinations' test centres. To get into college, I had given 5-7 online competitive exams (JEE/BITSAT/UCEED/etc.), and at each centre I had to mandatorily have my fingerprint scanned. Their reason was probably to prevent cheating, but I won't be surprised if my fingerprint/name/phone number/address is out their being sold.
- DedlySnek 6y ago
  > 3) When you buy something (say Domain name in Indian company),there are chances that they sell your information across many corporate interests without your consent. Here's a fun experiment. Create a temporary email or an email alias & register it on naukri.com & watch your inbox get flooded with non-job related emails. And here's another one, go to a local store for porting your sim, and receive a ton of calls for loan & credit cards (which unfortunately is quite common). Data is sold in India by almost every entity.
bobbydreamer 6y ago
There's a lot of marriage mafia happening in india where female wouldn't divorce husband but live off his salary in their house which will be partitioned has the possibility of ownership as well. I know a family where the divorce ran for 30yrs, the lady seemed to wasted his life and career. She used to go to his office and scream at him and due to that embarassment he changes job often and he is not able to shift for work other city or country as well. He recently got divorce after 30 years now he is 55yrs. So now a days guys tend to get some evidences by some spy tech filing divorce or clearing doubts. Females are also scammed by guys after all analysis as well. People somehow tens to hide their loans and make their partners pay it off. Regarding data, it can be got from anywhere. In the roadside store where people recharge mobiles, shopkeeper notes down names and number and address, that info can be bought. Nowadays easiest place in matrimony sites and from people who work there that's actually rich data where people describe about their family, status and groom or brides salary. Every year there data leakage from govt and private mobile companies with aadhaar details. Hiring detectives are old school and works, some rich people do before marriage and social media analysis.
blackoil 6y ago
India has a misogynistic society, dowry is still a major problem. Every year thousands of women are burned, killed and abated to suicide because of dowry. In parts of Northern India, gender ratio is atrociously skewed because of female infanticide. Unfortunately to compensate against, the laws became extremely pro-women which were abused in many cases. Compounded on it the fact that majority marriages in India are arranged by caste, financial status of the families.
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  I see a lot of the trouble India has had in eradicating bad social behavior replicated in the West. Like dowry, casteism, for example are clearly bad, but if you talk to someone from lower tier cities or villages who believes in all these things, you notice that most efforts from Bollywood, elite celebrities, and journalists to eradicate these things actually have a negative effect. India has huge inequality and the upper classes (especially the liberal upper class) are so hated and reviled by the common people and so out of touch that their many many attempts to handle sensitive topics like sexual assault, Dowry, casteism, etc. end up rubbing their intended audience the wrong way and getting them to tune out the message for good. You see a really similar thing in the US with Trumpism and the contempt working class people have for the social mores of the liberal upper class.
freespeechlol 6y ago
Private Detectives are not regulated in India, they can operate without license and obviously they are into really shady stuff. Their primary source of income is w.r.t marriages, but it is not just investigating the background of groom/bride, they are involved in sabotaging love (planting fake evidence, honey trap etc.) usually due to inter-caste/inter-faith relationships in the name of 'Investigating love cheats'. Here is an interview by Neil Patel of one such Private Investigation 'Startup', where the founder proudly claims to ruin relationships on behalf of her clients (Parents of the couple in love) and Neil just laughs it off - https://open.spotify.com/episode/4TfTitGyHkcXrJJmiJBzFy https://open.spotify.com/episode/4TfTitGyHkcXrJJmiJBzFy
- breitling 6y ago
  That was one of the worst guests I've ever heard on a podcast. Granted, maybe English isn't her first language, but the incoherent rambling stands out more in this format
  - freespeechlol 6y ago
    I agree, but I would blame the host as well, any other host caring about their reputation would not have published this or at least done some reasearch on how PI operate in India.
known 6y ago
Resulting in very lowly ranked in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
ahsima1 6y ago
Look on the bright side - if you get unsuccesfully poisoned with a secret nerve agent by the state intelligence services, you might have a chance at finding the killers.
benbojangles 6y ago
This is what my girlfriend is going through right now in England 12 months after divorcing her Indian husband. Even though we reset the iphone and change icloud he somehow manages to phone spy again within a month. Giveaways include sending messages a few minutes after he hears or reads something offensive, one time two of his friends tracked and followed us to a cinema.
- Siira 6y ago
  Sell the phone, trash the SIM. Easy. And beware confirmation bias.
lilSebastian 6y ago
After a TUPE transfer to an Indian company, we all started to get spam calls and texts after we provided our personal contact details to the HR department. We all sit in the same office and received the same series of calls.
2sk21 6y ago
Is it really that easy to install spyware on Android phones as the article seems to suggest?
pkphilip 6y ago
The Indian ISPs such as Reliance JIO have been caught doing deep packet inspection and MITM on internet traffic with absolute impunity - impersonating even Google servers to get user data: https://twitter.com/kingslyj/status/1172737012316590080 https://twitter.com/kingslyj/status/1172737012316590080 The Indian national id called the AADHAR leaks like a sieve and the government insists that is not the case. https://thewire.in/government/aadhaar-remains-an-unending-security-nightmare-for-a-billion-indians https://thewire.in/government/aadhaar-remains-an-unending-se... As AADHAR is linked to all sorts of services which users can access, it reveals a whole lot about users - including details such as their bank account numbers and in some cases even transactions. In one case, data for over 130 million AADHAR numbers was leaked: https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/aadhaar-data-of-130-millions-bank-account-details-leaked-from-govt-websites-report-974771-2017-05-02 https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/aadhaar-data... People have been caught selling this data for as little as Rs.500 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42575443 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42575443 Some of the people who are managing these things are totally incompetent and refuse to face facts. They have given stupid challenges to hackers and have had to face embarrassing exposes but they still refuse to acknowledge the problems: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/trai-chiefs-aadhar-dare-backfires-personal-details-put-online/article24544828.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/trai-chiefs-aadhar-da... That apart, state governments have been sharing voter data surreptitiously with political parties. https://www.newsclick.in/Telangana-MLC-Polls-Voters-Allege-Personal-Data-Leaked-BJP-MLC https://www.newsclick.in/Telangana-MLC-Polls-Voters-Allege-P...
jsshah 6y ago
Outside Mumbai domestic airport (this is where domestic flight take off and land unlike international airport .. also it is same airport but different terminal .. I digress) there is a taxi stand .. you stand in the line and one by one cabs (and auto rickshaws) will come and pick you up Before you get on one of these cabs .. there are two airport officials (or contractors) who make you write your name and phone number and destination (in the name of accountability or security) I am 90% certain (through grapevine) that that data is sold ..

wiglaf1979 6y ago

Target of the article and target audience is Indian based but it isn't like they are the only country with varying degrees of this crap going on. I wonder how bad will it get before something more meaningful is done? Equifax survived leaking all that data. That still amazes me. Roughly 1 in 3 Americans had their PII leaked and they suffered minimal fines. Minimal in the fact that they certainly haven't been impacted operationally. If the laws can't punish that level of breach, they aren't going to punish the small potato sized ones either.

kingo55 6y ago
The intent behind spyware and Equifax's data leak are not comparable. On one hand we have companies selling spyware for unlawful data collection (like wiretapping). On the other hand Equifax collects the data through partnerships and data-sharing arrangements that (whilst opaque to essentially all consumers) is generally well-regulated. GDPR, the APPs and CCPA may curtail another Equifax incident but outright-illegal data collection needs a different solution.

kumarvvr 6y ago

Indian laws, especially concerning marriage and divorce are extremely skewed towards women, in the sense that "its her word against yours" is almost a law unto itself. Not long ago, a woman could go to a police station, give a complaint against her husband and family, and her husband, his relatives, even those living in other cities or even states had to be put in jail. There were numerous cases where educated urban women had their in laws families, including aging grandmothers put in jail, that was widely amplified by the media. This law, numbered 498a, wreaked havoc in the nation. The law was non bailable and once applied, cannot be withdrawn, even if the complainant wants to do so. So you had a situation where, some urban women misused this law, causing whole families to be put in jail, without even as much as a preliminary enquiry, leading to chaos and a sure shot way for the marriage to breakdown. In a country where going to jail holds a lot of social stigma, no husband would ever want to reconcile with a wife who sent him to jail. The law was, in intent, aimed at protecting vulnerable women, and in that intent, if used correctly, acts as a powerful deterrent to domestic violence, especially in rural areas. However, for almost a decade, it was mainly used by urban and semi urban, educated women as a revenge tactic. The results in conviction rates, less than 5% for these cases, and the rapid increase in their numbers, lead to calls for reform. About 2 years back, the Supreme Court of India gave judgements & directed police departments to stop automatic arrests in such cases and only to make arrests after detailed enquiry. It observed that the intent of law was to reconcile and rehabilitate broken marriages due to domestic violence, but has now become a tool to harass husbands. No wonder the society and men, especially ones with assets and reputations to lose, started to resort to such measures to protect themselves from false cases. Edit : I would also like to add that normal divorce laws are also skewed towards women. They get favorable rulings in alimony, asset distribution, etc. Many of these 498a cases ended up being petty quarrels, where the wife wants to exact revenge, this was observed by Supreme Court too. The women did get their revenge by making their husband's families churn through the Indian court systems which are notorious for being slow and draining people financially, however, over-zealous usage and application of the law lead to dilution of a powerful law against those who actually suffer from domestic violence.

kylebenzle 6y ago
We have the same problem (minus the in laws part) in the US, here its called the, "silver bullet" [0]. I've been writing and speaking about it for about a year now and the consensus seems to be no one cares what happens to men. [0] https://quillette.com/2019/04/16/divorce-and-the-silver-bullet/ https://quillette.com/2019/04/16/divorce-and-the-silver-bull...
redis_mlc 6y ago
What you described above is applicable today in most US states. Anybody can make a false allegation of domestic violence (DV) against their partner, and the police have to arrest somebody. Of course, it's usually the man that's arrested. Apparently a lot of divorce lawyers ask their female clients, "Are you sure he didn't do this or that?", and Calif. family courts are sending out blank forms to solicit DV complaints.
zapdrive 6y ago
I can vouch for every single word you just said. I know an Indian guy who was doing residency in the US. Got married in India, his wife got him arrested under 498a. He spent 10 months in jail! Ridiculous. I'm lucky my turn came after the supreme Court ruling you mentioned. Me or my family was not arrested, but we still had to shell up about 30,000 USD to my in laws, which was money will spent to be honest (as they agreed to give me full custody of my daughter). I could have prevented all this my bugging my ex's phone. Why? Because it all happened so suddenly. Everything came down raining without even a hint from my ex. If I had a little bit intelligence of what she was cooking up, I could have even saved the marriage.
- dsohn0 6y ago
  Yeah your marriage could be saved if only you had bugged your wifes phone. Honestly what the fuck is wrong with Indians and shit culture there
- blueblisters 6y ago
  > I could have prevented all this my bugging my ex's phone. Why? Because it all happened so suddenly. Everything came down raining without even a hint from my ex. I could sympathize until here. If you can't trust your partner why marry them in the first place? I find it hard to believe there weren't signs of things going wrong before she slapped a case on you.

p2pai 6y ago

A zero-knowledge way of sharing and validating data is the direction we shd move towards. So for example, how can i convince the apartment office that i am a good renter without sharing my personal information? Technology solutions exist for this, just not used.

akritrime 6y ago
Because trust has a social aspect to it, along with technical. The tech may exist, but it is going to be quite hard, if not impossible, to explain to an average person how cryptographically verified evidence of the piece of information is better than the person just accessing said information.
- plibither8 6y ago
  Exactly. And also one of the main reasons why we don't see "blockchain" getting into the mainstream products. If consumers don't understand the true benefit (or even requirement) of it, it won't work. It's really tough to convince consumers to replace soul trust with cryptography.
  - mola 6y ago
    Block chain doesn't replace trust. If you are strong enough, i.e. control enough mining activity, you pretty much can do whatever you want. All it does, is formalize the same solutions for trust society has evolved. The downside is that it naturalizes the abuses and make them morally justified.
Throwaway1771 6y ago
Public/private keypairs. Solved problem since Nam.
- sn41 6y ago
  Politics/business nexus. Unsolved problem since the dawn of time.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deccanchargers 6y ago

Yes. In India, Privacy has lost much meaning. 1. Government mandates everyone to have Aadhaar card . In Aadhar card application form, there is option towards "sharing of data with third party" . Most People do tick that option. If they don't tick,there are chances that officers(mostly in bank where they take photo and biometric details of applicant) themselves tick that and apply for aadhar card. 2) Many colleges sell Students' Info, Phone number, Address for money. We get direct calls from coaching centre who didn't at all had our phone number. 3) When you buy something (say Domain name in Indian company),there are chances that they sell your information across many corporate interests without your consent.

plibither8 6y ago
One of the most infuriating thing for me was having my biometric information taken and shared at all the the competitive examinations' test centres. To get into college, I had given 5-7 online competitive exams (JEE/BITSAT/UCEED/etc.), and at each centre I had to mandatorily have my fingerprint scanned. Their reason was probably to prevent cheating, but I won't be surprised if my fingerprint/name/phone number/address is out their being sold.
DedlySnek 6y ago
> 3) When you buy something (say Domain name in Indian company),there are chances that they sell your information across many corporate interests without your consent. Here's a fun experiment. Create a temporary email or an email alias & register it on naukri.com & watch your inbox get flooded with non-job related emails. And here's another one, go to a local store for porting your sim, and receive a ton of calls for loan & credit cards (which unfortunately is quite common). Data is sold in India by almost every entity.

bobbydreamer 6y ago

There's a lot of marriage mafia happening in india where female wouldn't divorce husband but live off his salary in their house which will be partitioned has the possibility of ownership as well. I know a family where the divorce ran for 30yrs, the lady seemed to wasted his life and career. She used to go to his office and scream at him and due to that embarassment he changes job often and he is not able to shift for work other city or country as well. He recently got divorce after 30 years now he is 55yrs. So now a days guys tend to get some evidences by some spy tech filing divorce or clearing doubts. Females are also scammed by guys after all analysis as well. People somehow tens to hide their loans and make their partners pay it off. Regarding data, it can be got from anywhere. In the roadside store where people recharge mobiles, shopkeeper notes down names and number and address, that info can be bought. Nowadays easiest place in matrimony sites and from people who work there that's actually rich data where people describe about their family, status and groom or brides salary. Every year there data leakage from govt and private mobile companies with aadhaar details. Hiring detectives are old school and works, some rich people do before marriage and social media analysis.

blackoil 6y ago

India has a misogynistic society, dowry is still a major problem. Every year thousands of women are burned, killed and abated to suicide because of dowry. In parts of Northern India, gender ratio is atrociously skewed because of female infanticide. Unfortunately to compensate against, the laws became extremely pro-women which were abused in many cases. Compounded on it the fact that majority marriages in India are arranged by caste, financial status of the families.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago
I see a lot of the trouble India has had in eradicating bad social behavior replicated in the West. Like dowry, casteism, for example are clearly bad, but if you talk to someone from lower tier cities or villages who believes in all these things, you notice that most efforts from Bollywood, elite celebrities, and journalists to eradicate these things actually have a negative effect. India has huge inequality and the upper classes (especially the liberal upper class) are so hated and reviled by the common people and so out of touch that their many many attempts to handle sensitive topics like sexual assault, Dowry, casteism, etc. end up rubbing their intended audience the wrong way and getting them to tune out the message for good. You see a really similar thing in the US with Trumpism and the contempt working class people have for the social mores of the liberal upper class.

freespeechlol 6y ago

Private Detectives are not regulated in India, they can operate without license and obviously they are into really shady stuff. Their primary source of income is w.r.t marriages, but it is not just investigating the background of groom/bride, they are involved in sabotaging love (planting fake evidence, honey trap etc.) usually due to inter-caste/inter-faith relationships in the name of 'Investigating love cheats'. Here is an interview by Neil Patel of one such Private Investigation 'Startup', where the founder proudly claims to ruin relationships on behalf of her clients (Parents of the couple in love) and Neil just laughs it off - https://open.spotify.com/episode/4TfTitGyHkcXrJJmiJBzFy https://open.spotify.com/episode/4TfTitGyHkcXrJJmiJBzFy

breitling 6y ago
That was one of the worst guests I've ever heard on a podcast. Granted, maybe English isn't her first language, but the incoherent rambling stands out more in this format
- freespeechlol 6y ago
  I agree, but I would blame the host as well, any other host caring about their reputation would not have published this or at least done some reasearch on how PI operate in India.

known 6y ago

Resulting in very lowly ranked in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

ahsima1 6y ago

Look on the bright side - if you get unsuccesfully poisoned with a secret nerve agent by the state intelligence services, you might have a chance at finding the killers.

benbojangles 6y ago

This is what my girlfriend is going through right now in England 12 months after divorcing her Indian husband. Even though we reset the iphone and change icloud he somehow manages to phone spy again within a month. Giveaways include sending messages a few minutes after he hears or reads something offensive, one time two of his friends tracked and followed us to a cinema.

Siira 6y ago
Sell the phone, trash the SIM. Easy. And beware confirmation bias.

lilSebastian 6y ago

After a TUPE transfer to an Indian company, we all started to get spam calls and texts after we provided our personal contact details to the HR department. We all sit in the same office and received the same series of calls.

2sk21 6y ago

Is it really that easy to install spyware on Android phones as the article seems to suggest?

pkphilip 6y ago

The Indian ISPs such as Reliance JIO have been caught doing deep packet inspection and MITM on internet traffic with absolute impunity - impersonating even Google servers to get user data: https://twitter.com/kingslyj/status/1172737012316590080 https://twitter.com/kingslyj/status/1172737012316590080 The Indian national id called the AADHAR leaks like a sieve and the government insists that is not the case. https://thewire.in/government/aadhaar-remains-an-unending-security-nightmare-for-a-billion-indians https://thewire.in/government/aadhaar-remains-an-unending-se... As AADHAR is linked to all sorts of services which users can access, it reveals a whole lot about users - including details such as their bank account numbers and in some cases even transactions. In one case, data for over 130 million AADHAR numbers was leaked: https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/aadhaar-data-of-130-millions-bank-account-details-leaked-from-govt-websites-report-974771-2017-05-02 https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/aadhaar-data... People have been caught selling this data for as little as Rs.500 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42575443 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42575443 Some of the people who are managing these things are totally incompetent and refuse to face facts. They have given stupid challenges to hackers and have had to face embarrassing exposes but they still refuse to acknowledge the problems: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/trai-chiefs-aadhar-dare-backfires-personal-details-put-online/article24544828.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/trai-chiefs-aadhar-da... That apart, state governments have been sharing voter data surreptitiously with political parties. https://www.newsclick.in/Telangana-MLC-Polls-Voters-Allege-Personal-Data-Leaked-BJP-MLC https://www.newsclick.in/Telangana-MLC-Polls-Voters-Allege-P...

jsshah 6y ago

Outside Mumbai domestic airport (this is where domestic flight take off and land unlike international airport .. also it is same airport but different terminal .. I digress) there is a taxi stand .. you stand in the line and one by one cabs (and auto rickshaws) will come and pick you up Before you get on one of these cabs .. there are two airport officials (or contractors) who make you write your name and phone number and destination (in the name of accountability or security) I am 90% certain (through grapevine) that that data is sold ..