Fake Aadhaar Including Biometric Data Being Traded on Closed Facebook Groups
Aug. 9, 2018In hisrecent testimonyin front of the US Congressional committee, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about the trade of illegal products on Facebook groups including firearms, controlled substances, and even animals.
While Zuckerbergpromised to take the necessary steps, he might not have imagined that Facebook groups could be even more dangerous and pose a threat to the identity and the social existence of its users. We’d already seen howFacebook groups have been trading stolen credit card dataas well as social security numbers.Courtesy: Alt News
Alt News, which is well-known for provocative exposes, has made another disturbing revelation about thesale of fake Aadhaar cards and other government-issued ID proofs on closed Facebook groups. One such group is “Help for Friends – Advertising Deals” which has more than 7,000 members. Being a private group, it cannot be searched and you’ll need an invite from a friend to be part of this glorious group.Courtesy: Alt News
This, as per the report, is a “close-knit circuit” of those trading a variety of illegal documents. Not just documents, youcan find pre-activated SIM cards and even services such as illicit biometric authentication. Due to the two-pronged nature of Aadhaar, buyers can use these fake UID cards without the need of any online verification or OTP.Courtesy: Alt News
Meanwhile, there are several others seeking or supplying fake PAN cards and drivers’ licenses. Besides individual ID cards, many others could also be seen trading entire databases of Aadhaar, which I’m sure theydid not have to pay a challenging pricefor. There seems to be a lot of demand for editing Aadhaar cards, and anyone even with minimal experience with Photoshop knows one need not be a pro to make these trivial changes.Courtesy: Alt News
Besides Help for Friends, Alt News also discoveredanother close-knit private groupby the name, “Sharing is Caring” which is used to trade popular Instagram accounts or Facebook pages which deal with topics like Bollywood, cricket and Indian army. It also contains a small number of posts aboutselling fake Aadhaar cards and other IDs.Courtesy: Alt News
All in all, while there has been oversight from Facebook andoverconfident claims by government representatives, it’s not just fake news that users have to be worried about on Facebook.
