Watch: 5 Lessons to Remember from RS Sharma’s #AadhaarChallenge

We distill the 5 most valuable lessons learnt from all the noise surrounding RS Sharma’s #AadhaarChallenge.

Mr. Sharma has inadvertently taught us five lessons for the future

(Photo: TheQuint/ Shruti Mathur)

Till Saturday, 28 July, TRAI Chairman RS Sharma was known for net neutrality. After Saturday, he is known as the propagator of a trending hashtag #AadharChallenge. In the challenge, Sharma dared people to show him where the harm is.

Well here it is – SHARMA.

Mr Sharma, however, has inadvertently taught us some very valuable lessons by flinging the 12 digits of his Aadhaar number among the public and basically saying, "Jo ukhadna hain ukhaad lena".

In Deewar, Amitabh Bachchan may have refused to pick up coins flung at him. But in today’s times, social media folks have no hesitation picking up Aadhaar numbers flung at them.

So here are five important lessons from the Aadhaar challenge that we are really thankful to Mr Sharma for:

1. Security

The Aadhaar challenge has shown us the variety of ways in which the public availability of one’s Aadhaar can harm a person. Unlike Sharma’s interpretation, financial loss or a breach of UIDAI's own databases are not the only kinds of harm. Harm occurs when someone else in control of your data uses it in a manner not intended by you.  in security parlance, this tweet by Sharma himself also constitutes a ‘harm’.

For teaching us the extent of harms caused by the public aadhaar number Thank you Mr. Sharma

2. Legal

Kids, do not try this at home. Well, technically it is a criminal offence. RS Sharma violated the law. It's as simple as that.

Says who?

Says the Aadhaar Act of 2016, Section 38 read with Section 29. So please do not post your Aadhaar numbers online.

Section 29 (4) of the Aadhaar Act, 2016

For teaching us a new way of how not to land in jail, thank you Mr Sharma

3. Social

What the Aadhaar challenge also revealed is that three kinds of people engaged with the topic:

One pointed towards the security concerns of Aadhaar, one pointed towards the law books, and a third kind that pointed towards their own Aadhaar numbers.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

So, for teaching us that even a serious security issue can become a circus for macho posturing, thank you Mr Sharma

4. Administrative

If you're a UIDAI CEO, chances are that you’ve managed to get your Aadhaar-related data out in public. Current CEO Ajay Bushan Pandey had revealed his Aadhaar authentication logs to the Supreme Court and in return users revealed that 1 out of every 5 Aadhaar authentication attempts by Mr Pandey had failed.

Now, the former UIDAI CEO, RS Sharma, went ahead and publicly shared his Aadhaar number and what happened? He became richer by Re 1. So if the next UIDAI CEO is watching this video, please take notes from these valuable lessons.

So for maintaining the 100% record of Aadhaar CEOs having their Aadhaar-related data public, thank you Mr Sharma

5. Cultural

What the massive response to RS Sharma’s challenge proves is that people want talk about Aadhaar, about data security and about privacy as issues that directly affect our lives. Technology issues, then, have become an undeniable part of the mainstream public discourse.

So for once again putting Aadhaar security concerns in the mainstream debate, thank you Mr Sharma

So, in closing, two things are important:

1. For Aadhaar numbers to not be public;
2. The discussion on Aadhaar to be public.