We are Indians. We don't want to be China.

The CIA hacks into common devices, like smart phones and even smart television sets, claimed WikiLeaks yesterday. They disguise their hack by making it look like others, such as Russians, are the culprits. The Russians were blamed for hacking into Democratic Party servers in an effort to influence the presidential elections in Donald Trump's favor. Now the Russian site RT claims that the CIA was responsible for the hacking and deliberately left fingerprints to blame Russia. Why is it important to us in India? Because over 88% of the population, including 99% of adults, have been coerced into providing their photographs, fingerprints and iris scans for an identity card, called Aadhar. Over 582 banks, brokerages and government departments are already linked to Aadhar and the government is forcing people to use it for every financial transaction. If terrorists get hold of this data they can create their own false identities. "There has been no incident of misuse of Aadhar biometrics leading to identity theft and financial loss during the past five years when more than 400 crore Aadhar authentication transactions have taken place," said an official statement. Total lie. In 2013 Maharashtra lost data on 300,000 people while uploading their files to Aadhar servers in Bangalore. Three financial firms have been illegally using Aadhar data of their customers. "Violations of the provisions attract penalties under the Aadhar Act which will be enforced strictly," thundered the official statement. Hafiz Saeed and the ISI will be trembling with terror. The website of our elite National Security Guard was hacked recently by a Pakistani. But perhaps our fellows do really believe that the the Aadhar database is secure. What they do not realise is that breaches can easily happen at the user end. A Pakistani diplomat, Mehmood Akhtar was running a spy ring by obtaining an Aadhar card in the name of Mehboob Rajput. In Delhi. Just last December a hacking group, calling itself Legion, hacked into digital accounts of prominent Indians. "Let me tell you...the banking system of India is deeply flawed and has been hacked several times," said one of the group. Which mean that biometric details of Aadhar would be extremely vulnerable when banks are verifying identities of customers. An expert, Arun Mohan Sukumar, wrote that cyber security is virtually non-existent in India. Aadhar should have been used only for those who are receiving government subsidies, to prevent pilferage, and for government employees, to weed out ghost employees. It is actually to increase surveillance on citizens and vastly increase power of the government. It is what China does. Sadly no one is protesting.