Just days after Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala brought up the matter that an American company, Sprinklr, was tasked with the collection of health data in Kerala, the state government has retracted its previous arrangement it had made with the software company in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak.
With the new development, the details of those under observation in Kerala will now no longer be stored with the American company. Instead, they will now be collated on the government's data centre.
The Opposition on Sunday alleged that Sprinklr was gathering data of 1.75 lakh “vulnerable and potentially exposed” people through field workers. Chennithala pointed out that many private players in the pharmaceutical sector is likely to benefit from the data and cautioned the govt against letting it rest with an outsider. He even suggested government agencies like C-Dit or IT Mission for the task.
Chennithala also raised the issue of there being not a tender from the government before inking the deal with the American company.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had refuted the charges earlier by saying that Sprinklr's Chief Executive Officer was a Keralite, Ragy Thomas, hailing from Mavelikkara, and that the company was offering their help to aid the state's effort to combat coronavirus pandemic.
He also mentioned that Sprinklr was a listed supplier of the Information and Technology department.
Onmanorama had earlier put across the charges to Sprinklr, which categorically denied it owns or commercialises client data. The US-based firm said it has complied with the country's data privacy regulations while dealing with its clients here.
Sprinklr, however, said in an e-mail it was unable to “provide any additional commentary given the contractual obligations with the Government of Kerala and all of our other clients”. Sprinklr had said the queries should be directed to the Kerala government.
The software firm said it was offering its services to the Kerala government free of cost.
“The data used in its platform is owned and controlled by the government and stored in India”, it said in sync with Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan's statement, refuting the charges.
