Rahul Gandhi and BJP spar over ‘PM app data leak’

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official app was sharing data without users’ consent, a charge trashed by the BJP as a “fake story”.

After the ruling party accused the Congress and its president of having links with the disgraced data firm, Cambridge Analytica (CA), Mr Gandhi tweeted against NaMo App — the PM’s personal mobile application — based on a media report in which a French vigilante hacker has purportedly alleged that data was stolen from NaMo App without consent of the users. The Congress chief also accused the media of “burying” the story.

Mr Gandhi’s tweet said, “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.”

The Congress president also attached a news story titled, “Data theft allegations reach PM Modi’s doorstep, French vigilante hacker’s stunning revelation.”

Hitting back, the BJP said that Mr Gandhi was “no match” for Mr Modi and it was “amusing” to see Congress president’s “fright” about the App.

Union minister of state for electronics and information technology K.J. Alphons on Sunday dismissed allegations of data leak from NaMo App as “fake stories”.

“You think Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to give your data to a private company in the US. Don’t believe in such fake stories,” he told a news agency in Thiruvananthapuram.

Mr Alpohns said, “What is given in Aadhaar are just name and address. Your biometric data is with UIDAI and let me assure you that it has not been breached, it’s absolutely secure. We have given authorisation to government agencies to access Aadhaar information.”

The minister attacked critics of Aadhaar in tweet and said, “I filled up to 10 pages for US Visa form. We have absolutely no problem giving our fingerprints & getting body naked before the white man at all. When your own govt asks for your name & address there is a massive revolution saying it’ intrusion in privacy.”

On Saturday, French security researcher Elliot Alderson took to Twitter to claim that the NaMo App shares private information of users to a third-party US company Clever Tap without their consent.

The BJP’s official twitter handle said, “Rahul Gandhi is no match for Narendra Modi. But seeing his fright about the Namo App, is very amusing. When his bots tried to trend #DeleteNamoApp day before yesterday, the popularity and downloads of Namo App only increased.”

The ruling party also said that it did not expect “any better” from the Congress chief and insisted that the data is used only for analytics using third party service, similar to Google Analytics.

Analytics on the user data is done for offering users the most contextual content.

“We also take this opportunity to encourage Rahul Gandhi to download NaMo App to keep himself appraised of the good things happening in India,” the BJP4India said in a tweet.

It said the App gives access to users in “guest mode” without even any permission or data. The permissions required are all contextual and cause-specific, the BJP said.

Meanwhile, senior BJP leader and Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hit back at Mr Gandhi over his claim about huge pendency of cases in courts and shortage of judges, saying the government’s notice to Cambridge Analytica for data mining has unnerved the Congress president.

Mr Prasad said the judiciary has never been made part of any political debate in the country. He also said that in 2016, a record 126 high court judges were appointed in one year, which he claimed was the highest since independence.

“The tradition of the country has been that even in case of extreme political hostility, we keep judiciary aside, and we should continue to do so,” said Mr Prasad while wondering whether Mr Gandhi’s tweet on judicial pendency was a result of his “nervousness” after government’s notice to Cambridge Analytica for data mining.