Shooting The Messenger: Reporter Who Exposed Massive Indian Data Breach Targeted By Law Enforcement

from the wrong-target dept

For many years now, we've been among those raising concerns about India's giant identity database known as Aadhaar. A few weeks ago, we wrote that there appeared to be a fairly massive breach of data from that database, and that the information was now available on the dark web for cheap.

This is obviously quite concerning and you'd hope that various Indian government agencies would launch an appropriate investigation. And... it appears at least one investigation has been launched. But, not into the leak. Instead, it's allegedly into the reporter who exposed the leak:

A branch of the Indian government filed a police complaint last week launching an investigation into journalist Rachna Kaira and the Tribune of India, after the publication released a report describing what looks to be a massive vulnerability in a government database that is being exploited by an unknown group to sell highly sensitive and private data about Indian citizens.

The details on the "police complaint" remain sparse, so perhaps it's not a huge deal -- but any attempt to investigate and/or intimidate (and those can be one and the same in some cases) a reporter for merely exposing a fairly big possible data breach that could effect over a billion people at least suggests an interest in covering up the breach, rather than in understanding the breach and preventing further damage.

Filed Under: aadhaar, data breach, free press, india, journalism, rachna kaira, shooting the messenger