New Delhi, July 29: A day after a French hacker claimed to have acccessed alleged personal details of TRAI chairman who tweeted his Aadhaar number, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) dismissed any data breach. The UIDAI on Sunday said the 'hacked' details of TRAI chief was not fetched from Aadhaar database.

"Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) today dismissed claims made by certain elements on Twitter & a section of Media that they have fetched personal details of Ram Sewak Sharma who is a public servant using his Aadhaar number," a statement released by the authority said. It said the information revealed by the hacker was already in public domain.

"Any information published on Twitter about RS Sharma wasn't fetched from Aadhaar database or UIDAI’s servers. In fact, this so–called “hacked” information was already available in public domain as he being a public servant for decades & was easily available on Google & other sites," it added.

In a series of tweets, a French security expert, who goes by the nickname Elliot Alderson and uses twitter handle @fs0c131y, allegedly leaked personal details of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman R S Sharma. Sharma disclosed his Aadhaar number on Twitter and challenged everyone to show how mere knowledge of the UIDAI number could be used to harm him.

"My Aadhaar number is ************. Now I give this challenge to you: Show me one concrete example where you can do any harm to me," tweeted Sharma, a known defender of Aadhaar.

The challenge by Sharma evoked an immediate response from the Twitterati, with some users claiming to have dug up his mobile number, photographs, residential address, date of birth and even chat threads using the information, while others warned him about the perils of throwing such a dare on the social media platform.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 29, 2018 05:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).