The IIT postgraduate illegally accessed Aadhaar data on the NIC's server (Representational)
A postgraduate student of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, has been arrested for allegedly accessing the server of Aadhaar data provider UIDAI illegally via a mobile application. Abhinav Srivastava, 31, developed the app for enabling Aadhaar verification of users but without authorisation, police.
Mr Srivastava, who belongs to Kanpur and lives in Bengaluru, was arrested on August 1 based on a complaint by the deputy director of the Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI.
The IIT-Kharagpur postgraduate developed the mobile app for Aadhaar KYC or know-your-customer verification and uploaded it on Google Play, from where Android mobile users can download it.
However, the accused illegally accessed Aadhaar information on the National Informatics Centre's server, police said.
Mr Srivastava also co-founded mobile payments firm Qarth Technologies Private Limited, which was acquired by ride-hailing service provider Ola in 2016. He has been working with Ola as a software development engineer.
Accusing Mr Srivastava of committing a "very serious" crime by exposing private information of citizens, police said the city's crime branch along with cyber crime sleuths arrested him.
The police said a computer, four laptops, a tablet, four mobile phones, six pen drives and other material worth Rs 2.25 lakh were found with him. Further investigation is on, police said.