Hyderabad: Like Facebook, the Narendra Modi Android app and the Indian National Congress Android app also request permission to access users’ photos, messages and contacts. This data is used by analytical programmes to understand users’ needs when planning app enhancements.
This Modi app uses the CleverTap analytics platform and has a contract with Wizrocket India, which is a subsidiary of a USA-based company. A French cyber-security researcher who goes by the names of Robert Baptiste and Elliot Alderson alleged on Twitter, on Saturday, that the Narendra Modi app shared users’ private information with third-party companies without their consent. This comes after the revelation that British company Cambridge Analytica unlawfully used the private data of over 50 million Facebook users to influence the American presidential elections of 2016 in favour of Donald Trump.
The publication of personal information such as a user’s name, gender, email address, and photograph, without his or her consent constitutes a serious breach of privacy.
According to Independent security researcher Srinivas Kodali, “Engineering analytics are collected to fix security bugs, like if an app keeps crashing. These analytics include the user’s location within the app and information about other applications being run simultaneously. There is uncertainty about applications’ practices and the user information they share. A lot of data is collected, and nobody knows if and how to have it deleted. There are no rules regarding this, and so regulations need to be framed.”
On Saturday, the BJP denied allegations of users’ data being used for any inappropriate purposes. Until Friday, there was no privacy policy available on the app. Soon after the French researcher made his claims, a privacy policy began to be displayed. It reads, “Certain information may be processed by third-party services”, and provides data regarding the data being collected and used.
It also mentions that a user’s name, email, mobilephone number, device information, location and network carrier may be processed by third-party services to offer a better experience. The Narendra Modi app, which was launched in June 2015, faced a data leak in December 2016.
