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Thiruvananthapuram: These are interesting times when the United States of America is concerned about food, medicine, and the economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic, while at the other extreme, the state of Kerala is grappling with concerns about the data security and privacy.
The state government led by the IPC (M), which has earned recognition inside and outside the country for its expert management of the new coronavirus crisis and flattening of the infection curve, is being criticized for allegedly violating the privacy of people quarantined due to an agreement with a technology company based in the United States to handle the data compiled from them. The Kerala High Court on Tuesday asked the state government to file an affidavit on Wednesday to ensure the privacy of the data.
What is the deal?
The state government deal is with Sprinklr, a SaaS (Software as a Service) company owned by Ragi Thomas, a Keralite expat, who offers marketing, advertising and customer engagement services. It refers to the personal health data of people in the state, where the first new case of coronavirus in the country was reported when a Wuhan student arrived in Thrissur on January 1, 2020, categorized as “vulnerable and potentially exposed.” to the pandemic.
Data with answers to various questions, including details of their symptoms and health conditions, were compiled by grassroots workers using a tool developed by Sprinklr to help doctors and medical officials make an informed decision about a possible hospitalization.
How did the controversy break out?
Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala in Kerala unleashed an attack on the state government, accusing him of allowing Sprinklr to compile and manage the health data of around 1.75 lakh people in quarantine without their consent, at a press conference on 12 April. He asked 15 questions to the state government.
According to the veteran congressional leader, the government failed to follow proper procedures for naming Sprinklr and therefore risked transferring crucial citizens’ health data to pharmaceutical companies. He asked why the administration took the assistance of a company based in the United States when there were institutions like the Center for the Development of Imaging Technology (CDIT) and the Kerala State IT Mission could do the same job.
“The state government has competent agencies to handle this data, and instead, why is this strictly private data shared with a foreign company? On their website, they have mentioned that there will be times when they will pass the data on to others, which is unethical, ”he said. “We want to know what due process of law was done when it was decided to deliver this highly confidential data to this firm. Was there a global tender for this?” I ask.
Chennithala said the decision was made unilaterally by Prime Minister Pinarayi Vijayan without obtaining authorizations from departments such as law, local government, health and finance. He also asked how IT secretary M Sivasankar could act in a publicity film for the company that was hosted on its website.
How did the government react?
The prime minister, who manages the IT department, which signed the deal with Sprinklr, declined to answer a question on the matter on April 13. It was quite surprising since he used to narrate the heart of a situation while addressing the media after the Covid-19 review meeting. Instead, he told reporters that the TI secretary will draft the deal.
However, the government defended the measure, stating that the company’s tool was offered free of charge as SaaS and that the company was owned by a Keralite who wanted to return to the state the service offered by the state to his father who is in Kerala. . . The IT department said the data was collected on a large scale and therefore needed the intervention of an application that could quickly collect it and help analyze it. The Sprinklr tool was already ready and therefore only had to be customized to meet the needs of the state, he said.
What did the agreement say?
The government, in a step to reaffirm its transparency, released documents related to the contract it signed with Sprinklr on April 2. The documents included the purchase order form, the service agreement, the company’s privacy policy and a confidentiality agreement. According to the documents, the data belongs to the Kerala government.
In addition, the agreement order signed with the company stated: “All employees participate in mandatory training on data protection and information security and are formally required to maintain data confidentiality. Sprinklr established a data protection steering committee of key functional leaders across the company, and Sprinklr also appointed an experienced Data Protection Officer. ”
Did the domain name change?
Yes. The government, after the indictment, changed the domain name for the data entry from ‘citizencenter.sprinklr.com’ to
‘citizencenter.kerala.gov.in’.
Why so much controversy in times of pandemic?
It was evident that the Congress-led FDU, annoyed by the admiration received by the government and the role of Pinarayi Vijayan as crisis manager, wanted a situation that would attack the prime minister. Thus, Sprinklr was a golden opportunity. Since the IT department is in the hands of the prime minister, they could train their weapons against him. There are no allegations about the exchange of financial favors in the agreement. With assembly elections only a year away, the Opposition believes that the dispute may help it gain an advantage over the ruling coalition.
Where did it go wrong?
The engagement date with Sprinklr was March 25 and the purchase order was signed on April 2. There was an adequate time to complete due process, including legal and financial verification, and also escalate it with the health and disaster management departments. However, this was not done. Additionally, questions remain about how and why Sprinklr was uniquely appointed to the task without even submitting a global tender. Since the exercise involves confidential data from thousands of people, the question arises why the government, which was publishing almost everything
in public, he did not.
What are the ideological entanglements?
The nature of the row is concerning the IPC (M) because it had aggressively confronted the BJP-run Center over data privacy concerns surrounding the national Aadhaar project. A Pinarayi Vijayan Facebook post in 2017 about the dangers of breaching data privacy is viral now. Furthermore, the controversy in an agreement with a US company is always a cause for concern for the party and its cadres with a strong anti-imperialist position.
What is the IPC (M) reaction?
The state IPC (M) secretariat on Tuesday extended its support for the government. He discovered that the state government had ensured that the Sprinklr deal was in line with IT rules in the country, which has no separate rules for data security. The party also stated that it is an extraordinary situation in which a person’s privacy must be violated as part of monitoring activities to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
What is the position of the BJP in the row?
The state BJP, which declared “no controversy” during the pandemic and extended its support for the government, did not attack the government as ferociously as the UDF. However, he did meet with Governor Arif Mohammad Khan with a memorandum to investigate the Sprinklr deal.
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