Data sharing is the new talk in town. After the whole scandal with Cambridge Analytica both political parties, BJP and Congress have come under the scanner for alleged data sharing. Now, it’s BJP’s turn to clarify. The App in the name of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put BJP in a tough situation. The party has been accused of sharing the users’ data with American companies.
Rahul Gandhi previously called out the PM’s app.
Hi! My name is Narendra Modi. I am India’s Prime Minister. When you sign up for my official App, I give all your data to my friends in American companies.
Ps. Thanks mainstream media, you’re doing a great job of burying this critical story, as always.https://t.co/IZYzkuH1ZH
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) March 25, 2018
The news flared up on social media attracting a lot of attention. The accusations suggested that the app demands access to the user’s audio, video and even the contact lists of its users. Gandhi also said that the app tracks the user’s location. BJP’s IT cell Amit Malviya, in turn, accused Congress’ app With INC of giving data to companies in Singapore. When Gandhi’s accusations surfaced it was also implied that Congress has taken its own app off of Google Play store.
Contrary to Rahul’s lies, fact is that data is being used for only analytics using third party service, similar to Google Analytics. Analytics on the user data is done for offering users the most contextual content.
— BJP (@BJP4India) March 25, 2018
BJP though bounced back stating that the data is being used for analytics and nothing more. It was also said that the app requests permission for specific purposes. The app is also said to allow people to access it even in the guest mode without divulging details and granting permissions. The app currently has 5 million downloads. The matter came to light when a security researcher functioning under a pseudonym, Elliot Alderson posted tweets on 24th March mentioning that the app was sharing the users’ data with an American third party.
When you create a profile in the official @narendramodi #Android app, all your device info (OS, network type, Carrier …) and personal data (email, photo, gender, name, …) are send without your consent to a third-party domain called https://t.co/N3zA3QeNZO. pic.twitter.com/Vey3OP6hcf
— Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) March 23, 2018
The researcher also posted following the reveal that changes had been made in the app’s privacy policy.
After the NaMo #android app exposé yesterday, the privacy policy of @narendramodi has been change quietly. The cached version is accessible here https://t.co/K7Uz5mUsR1
— Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) March 25, 2018
Whether this is for real, is still up for questioning.