An unsavoury controversy over the collection of personal data of people kept in isolation for coronavirus has created discordant note in the state government’s drive against the disease, which otherwise achieved great success.
Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala has accused the government of entering into a deal with a controversial American company called Sprinklr for the collection of data relating to coronavirus isolation cases.
Ramesh alleged that according to the original notification by the department of local self-government, the information was to be uploaded to the company’s server located in the US. But when the issue became controversial, the data was transferred from the company’s subdomain to the government IT department’s subdomain, he said.
The Opposition leader claimed that the data was still being uploaded to the Sprinklr server. The company has been facing legal action in the US over alleged data theft, he alleged. The health and local self-government ministers had no clues to what was happening, he claimed.
Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had in his daily coronavirus briefing evaded questions over the deal, which raised suspicion that everything was not straightforward with the deal. He had claimed that the company had offered the service for free.
Ramesh, however, claimed that the state government would be obliged to pay the company once the coronavirus crisis was over.
In the wake of the controversy, the government released the documents about the deal with the company. The deal, which was signed on April 2, authorised the company to collect people’s health data in the backdrop of the coronavirus outbreak for a period from March 24 to September 25.
In support of its claim on the data security, the government also produced letters exchanged between the two sides, seeking a commitment from the company against data theft. But the Opposition leader claimed that these were mere emails and had no proper legal validity in terms of the deal.
