‘Inadvertently’ put UIDAI no. on phones: Google

Hours after the Aadhaar-issuing authority UIDAI said on Friday it had not asked any phonemaker or telecom service provider to include its toll-free number on mobile phones, search engine giant Google said the number was inserted by the platform in the automatic setup wizard on phones back in 2014.

Even as the Aadhaar-issuing authority UIDAI said on Friday that it has not asked any phone maker or telecom service provider to include its toll-free number on mobile phones, search engine giant and Android-maker Google said that the number was inserted by the platform in the automatic setup wizard on phones back in 2014.

Google said that the emergency number 112 and the UIDAI number got "inadvertently coded" in the Indian version of Android and have remained there since. "Since the numbers get listed on a user's contacts list these get transferred accordingly to the contacts on any new device," a Google spokesperson said.

"We are sorry for any concern that this might have caused, and would like to assure everyone that this is not a situation of an unauthorised access of their Android devices," the statement said adding that the company will work to get the numbers removed in the upcoming release of its software which will be made available to handset makers.

Google's response came as a relief for the social media community, which was in frenzy over the mystery of the UIDAI's helpline number being found in contacts list on most Android devices.