Thiruvananthapuram: Leader of the Opposition in Kerala Ramesh Chennithala is in no mood to step back from his allegations of data compromise by the CPM-led government in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Chennithala on Wednesday said the deal between the government and US-based marketing firm Sprinklr is a fraudulent one. He said there was a huge scam behind the deal. The Congress leader was addressing media persons a day after the government released documents which it calls the contract with the US firm, owned by Keralite Ragi Thomas.
Chennithala said the agreement published by the government on its website is nothing but emails sent between it and the company after he raised the issue. He cited the dates of the mails to prove his charge.
"I held the first press met on the issue on April 10. The company's representative sent emails to the government ensuring protection of the data on April 11 and 12. This is not a legal agreement. They would not have sent the mails if I had not raised the issue," Chennithala said, urging Pinarayi to come clean on the issue.
Kerala government is using a mobile application developed by Sprinklr which allows health workers to record details of the citizens under surveillance for symptoms of the novel coronavirus. Chennithala has alleged that government signed the data-handling contract with the company without following due procedures and thus compromised the personal data of lakhs of people.
As per the documents released by the government, it signed a contract with the company on April 2. The government has authorised Sprinklr to collect data from the people from March 25 to September 24. The agreement also says that the data will be fully owned by the government.
"Chief Minister Pinarayi said Sprinklr was offering free service, but the agreements now show, it will be priced once the COVID-19 crisis is tackled. So the biggest bluff has now been exposed," Chennithala said.
He reiterated that IT secretary M Sivasankar was behind the corrupt deal. Sivasankar was featured in an advertisement of Sprinklr which reportedly claimed it was helping the Kerala government tackle the COVID-19 crisis. The video ad has now been removed from the company's website.
"Why did they remove the advertisement from the website if there was nothing fishy," the Congress leader asked. He said though he has sent a letter to the chief minister requesting him to the permission to examine the files relating to the deal, he has not been given any reply.
Chenithala made a serious allegation that the data of 87 lakh ration card holders in the state has already been handed over to the company.
"This deal is a fraudulent one and neither the health, IT nor local self government departments has any clue about it. Pinarayi Vijayan is beating around the bush about the deal. He should now say, if he has had any discussion with this firm. At the moment, I will stop here and will come back with more details later. Let us first hear from the CM," Chennithala said.
Mullappally seeks PB's view
State Congress president Mullapally Ramachandran wanted the politburo of the CPM to come out with their views on the issue as they always speak about data privacy.
"The PB had taken a strong stance against Cambridge Analytica, the British data mining firm, which was at the centre of a controversy surrounding data misuse for sabotaging democratic elections. The PB was also against the Indian companies that cooperated with Cambridge Analytica. I would like to know the PB's stance on the Kerala government's data sale," he asked.