The Chennai Municipal Corporation’s website now lets anyone search for birth and death certificates, only requiring them to fill in gender and one other criterion from registration number, person’s name, date of birth, place of birth or mother and father’s name to display the birth or death certificates of Chennai residents or those born there. (H/T: St_Hill, NDTV reported it originally.) It is not clear since when the corporation let anybody search for these details, but the online birth and death certificates seem to have existed from 2008 (!!), when one could verify and print their birth and death certificates online. It's as simple as it sounds. No login, no validation, no OTP, nothing. Essentially, anyone can download anyone's birth certificate — St_Hill (@St_Hill) December 23, 2015 @St_Hill You are also one of the reason for letting our privacy out by tweeting this loophole in a public forum. Please be responsible. — மாரா♣ (@maaraaji) December 23, 2015 A quick search for other metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad revealed that only Kolkata and Delhi do not list an online process for birth and death certificate search, whereas for Mumbai and Hyderabad, users could use registration number and year, ward, gender, DOB (somewhat safer alternative); and DOB and gender to avail certificates. The public relations officer of the Chennai Corporation told MediaNama that users could obtain birth and death certificates only of Chennai residents, starting from 1990 to date, but on the website, users can access certificates right from 1910 to date. What’s worse is that…
