The government of India through the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (14C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a warning to all the Finteches regarding unauthorized use of PAN cards on their platforms. It categorically mentions the permission part from the part of the authorities before availing the same data for any purpose. 

Reports about PAN Enrichment 
There are serious reports regarding the use of PAN cards for registration purposes by Lending platforms and others to grant loans or credits to consumers. This practice is referred to as PAN Enrichment. It refers to the unauthorized exploitation of Personal data for commercial gains. Although the practice doesn’t fall under data breach, it still involves unauthorized use of government-maintained backend systems. 

What sort of data were accessible? 
Through PAN the companies were able to gather data on Names, Addresses, Phone Numbers, and other crucial personal information including credit score and other information through systems of the Income-tax department. This fails the entire purpose of issuing a PAN number as this permanent account Number is there to validate the data given by the consumer without giving access to personal information. 

Unauthorized Use 
Organizations pursuing PAN Enrichment included lending agencies, loan-sourcing channels, credit sales agents, and credit aggregators. To count names can be difficult but, overall an unauthorised process was undertaken internally in these companies. Industry insiders report that disruptions in these services have increased in recent weeks due to government intervention.

Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023
The government's crackdown is part of a broader effort to safeguard citizens' Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from unauthorized use. Under the DPDP Act 2023, companies are required to follow proper channels and obtain consent before processing personal data.