Put TDP Govt Under The Scanner For Data Theft: YSRCP

Hyderabad: Demanding a high level inquiry by all the concerned agencies from Cyber Crime to Election Commission and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to thoroughly investigate the data harvesting and data theft, the YSR Congress has said that it’s breach of state resident data that they have been raising and not the data of TDP as their leaders are claiming.

Speaking to reporters here on Monday, party MLA and PAC (Public Accounts Committee, AP Assembly) Chairman Buggana Rajendernath said, The data harvesting being done by IT Grid has been so sensitive that it has full control of the personal information of the residents of Andhra Pradesh which was provided by a mechanism created by the State through surveys by contract workers.

This case is nothing less than that of the sensational Facebook versus London- based Cambridge Analytica scandal which took the world by storm in 2018 and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to appear before competent authorities for launching Open Graph platform to third-party apps through which data over 8 crore people was harvested for political use in the United States while here the IT Grids India Pvt Ltd stored data of over 4.5 core people in just one state of Andhra Pradesh.

IT Grids (Hyderabad) and Bluefrog Technoloies (Vizag) were the two most favoured companies which have been patronized by Chandrababu Naidu and the heads of the two companies are always seen in the Chief Minster’s Office.

The YSRCP had lodged a complaint after learning that large number of names from the electoral rolls were being deleted which were those of YSRCP sympathisers. The party leaders’ suspicion was strengthened with the Seva Mitra App recording all the personal details of the people of Andhra Pradesh and the data being segregated and manipulated by IT Grids, which has its head office in Hyderabad. The personal data of residents of Andhra Pradesh is being used for political purposes by private players which is a serious offence which was mentioned in the party’s complaint.

TDP leaders and IT Minister Nara Lokesh saying that the case was filed in Hyderabad as part of a conspiracy, forgetting conveniently that the place of offence and the head office of the Company are in Hyderabad is a faint attempt to confuse the real issue.

The case of data theft is established beyond doubt with some of the features being deleted from the Seva Mitra App including the colour photograph of the person as the Aadhar Card does not have colour photo anywhere. Along with the picture, even the mobile number, Aadhar Number and other details were deleted hastily after February 20 which itself is proof of the TDP government’s involvement and the IT Company’s unlawful activities.

IT Grids developed and maintains the Seva Mitra App and the data theft was carried out in a systematic manner by categorising the state resident data collected through the Apps which were stored and categorised into four sections under the heads of TDP, YSRCP, Neutral and Non-Residents. That was how large number of names of YSRCP sympathisers were getting deleted as the controlling server was in Hyderabad with IT Grids. This proves the scale on which electoral roles were being methodically manipulated across the state of Andhra Pradesh.

The YSRCP stated that it had complained to the Election Commission and other relevant authorities. A high ranking official, who was with Aadhar Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and who was a beneficiary of Chandrababu’s largesse, made no move to take action, Buggana said.

The YSRCP spokesperson sought a high-level inquiry to be conducted by the Cyber Crime Department, Election Commission, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and other related departments on the data theft issue. He also clarified that the party had been seeking a thorough probe into the data harvesting of state resident data and not that of the TDP cadre data as being claimed by Nara Lokesh and Chandrababu Naidu.