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The flaw did not mean any data of users had been compromised, the spokesperson added.

Earlier in the day, the UIDAI and telecom operators said they were not responsible for the number being fed to people’s phones .

“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,” a statement by the agency said, referring to the number that Twitter users found under the name ‘UIDAI’ on the contact list of their devices.

Throughout Friday, UIDAI was among the top five trending topics on Twitter, with nearly 2,000 posts on the issue by evening.

Helpline numbers can be preprogrammed into mobile devices by operators, device makers or developers of the device’s operating system. Mobile operators denied programming the UIDAI number, according to a statement by the Cellular Operators Association of India.

Two Twitter users indicated the responsibility could lie with Google. Arnav Gupta, an Android application developer, and Kingsly John — who described himself as someone who “comments on mobile-developer issues” — were among the first to spot the issue.

“The number does not exist on a fresh install before the device connects to the Internet. So it is coming from the Internet, and not present in the OS itself,” Gupta tweeted first, after which John experimented with his phones to ascertain how the number found