Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi, who is political tour to Karnataka took the opportunity to attach the Prime Minister Narendra Modi over data of app users being shared with third parties. A recent report by a French Cyber Security expert questions the data safety measures taken in the Narendra Modi app.
But just within few hours after the allegation by Congress Chief, there was a quick response by some sources in BJP, and they denied such allegations and said the application does not seek complete permission to utilize user’s data.
“Narendra Modi App is a unique app, which unlike most apps, gives access to users in ‘guest mode’ without even any permission or data. The permissions required are all contextual and cause-specific,” according to some party sources.
According to the BJP party sources, “contact access is required to connect with friends or fellow party workers on the New India connect module. If a person has entered his email address and date of birth, he receives a personalised birthday greeting from the Prime Minister. Each function asks for the specific permission when access is required.”
The app functions as work-flow management platform for lakhs of party workers. It was in use during Gujarat elections to be able to connect with voters and is also utilized for Swachch Bharat campaign to collect feedback.
During the second day of his Karnataka visit, Rahul Gandhi attacked Prime Minister Modi and took reference of a media report in which a French vigilante hacker alleged in a series of twitter posts that the personal data including email IDs, photos, gender and names of the users of PM Modi’s mobile app were being sent to a third party domain without obtaining their consent.
But the BJP sources said that the data exposed by the French Twitter user is the data “entered by the user on his own device” and hence it does not proves to be a “not a security breach”, emphasising on the point that the person does not have access to “any data apart from his own data”. They held the view that the data is being used for analytics using third party service, similar to Google Analytics.
“The data in no way is stored or used by the third party services. Analytics and processing on the user data is done for offering users the most contextual content. This ensures that a user gets the best possible experience by show content in his/her own language,” news agency IANS quoted the party sources as saying.
The NaMo app which is available on Google Play Store, describes itself to be an ‘official app of the Prime Minister of India. But the fact is that the app — or the website ‘narendramodi.in’ — is not owned by or affiliated to the India government, which generally uses the domain ‘nic.in’ or ‘gov.in’.
A US-based company Akamai, headquartered in Massachusetts, hosts the website. The app is owned by PM Modi in his personal capacity, not by the Prime Minister’s office, and he has provided 11, Ashok Road, New Delhi – BJP’s headquarter for a few months back – as the registered address.
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