Shooting The Messenger In Aadhaar Breach Case? Reality Check

A police complaint against a journalist for breaking a story over vulnerabilities in the Aadhaar database has been criticised by the press as a possible attempt to muzzle journalistic freedom. The Aadhaar-issuing authority UIDAI filing a police case against The Tribune newspaper reporter is being seen as a matter of shooting the messenger. The newspaper had written about how easy it is to buy Aadhaar details of people with just Rs 500. Critics have pointed out that the UIDAI is allegedly selective against whom it chooses to act. It had filed police complaints against eight private websites for collecting Aadhaar data from people in an unauthorised manner in April 2017, but no action appears to have been taken against government websites that breached Aadhaar rules. On Reality Check, we discuss whether this is a case of shooting the messenger.