Google takes the fall for UIDAI helpline number controversy

The controversy of UIDAI that struck the country on August 3, wherein a contact showed up seemingly randomly in people’s phones, escalated with the companies responsible refuting claims. Google sent out an emailed statement to an online news site that reached out to them and asserted that the issue didn’t result from any directive by any authority in India but due to a software issue in Android because of which Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) now de-commissioned toll free number found it’s way into people’s contact lists.

“Our internal review has revealed that in 2014, the then UIDAI helpline number and the 112 distress helpline number were inadvertently coded into the SetUp wizard of the Android release given to OEMs for use in India and has remained there since,” a Google spokesperson mentioned in a statement emailed to Gadgets 360. “Since the numbers get listed on a user’s contact list, these get transferred accordingly to the contacts on any new device. We are sorry for any concern that this might have caused, and would like to assure everyone that this is not a situation of any unauthorised access of their Android devices. Users can manually delete the number from their devices.”

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The issue is set to be fixed in an upcoming release of the setup wizard that will be provided to OEMs over the next few weeks, the Google spokesperson added.

Users of the iPhone, too, reported that the number showed up in their contacts, but a breakdown of the matter led to the fact that they synced their contacts with a Gmail account that already had the said contact added to its list after being used on an impacted Android device.

UIDAI had on Friday, in the wake of the controversy, refuted media reports in a series of tweets and highlighted that the helpline number spotted by the users, which was 18003001947, was no longer a valid toll-free number, and it was changed to 1947 two years ago. “UIDAI has reiterated that it has not asked or advised anyone including any telecom service providers or mobile manufacturers or Android to include 18003001947 or 1947 in the default list of public service numbers,” the authority behind Aadhaar had said.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) denied any reports of being involved in the controversial event while responding to an emailed query. “The inclusion of a certain unknown number in the phonebooks of various mobile handsets is not from any telecom service provider,” COAI had said.

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