A war of words broke out between Smriti Irani and Rahul Gandhi, with the I&B Minister mocking the Congress President for deleting his party’s official app from Google Play Store on Monday, 26 March.
Irani, on Twitter, questioned the Gandhi scion for deleting the app, when he had been appealing to the public to delete the NaMo app.
She further mocked Gandhi with a “Chhota Bheem” jibe. Comparing him to the cartoon character, she tweeted:
App Deleted as Wrong URL Was Being Circulated: Congress
The Indian National Congress, however, has clarified that the app was deleted from the Play Store as the wrong URL was being circulated and people were being misled.
Divya Spandana, Head of Congress Social Media, also took to Twitter to clarify that the deletion of the party’s app was due to defunct URL.
Modi, the ‘Big Boss Who Likes to Spy on Indians’: Gandhi
Earlier, Congress President Gandhi on Monday, 26 March had claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s NaMo app “secretly recorded” data, including audio, video and contact details. He also labelled Modi as the “Big Boss who likes to spy on Indians”.
Gandhi further accused Modi of “forcing” 13 lakh NCC cadets to download the mobile application.
NaMo App Selling Data to US Firms: Gandhi
The BJP on Sunday, 25 March, had denied Gandhi’s allegations that Modi had leaked user data from the NaMo app to US firms, saying that the app didn’t ask for blanket permissions when started, and “even allows access to users in guest mode without any permission for data”.
Sources told IANS that the permissions required for the app are all "contextual and cause-specific".
"Contact access is required to connect with friends or fellow party workers on the New India connect module. If a person has entered his email address and date of birth, he receives a personalised birthday greeting from the Prime Minister. Each function asks for the specific permission when access is required," a source told IANS.
Referring to Gandhi’s mention of a French vigilante hacker who allegedly found the data breach, the source further mentioned that the data is "entered by the user on his own device" and hence it was "not a security breach", as a result of which the person does not have access to "any data apart from his own data", the IANS report adds.
Adding that the data is used for analytics using third party service, just like Google Analytics, the source, defending the BJP, said: “Analytics and processing on the user data is done for offering users the most contextual content. This ensures that a user gets the best possible experience by show content in his/her own language.”
KJ Alphons Calls Gandhi’s Allegations “Fake News”
KJ Alphons, Minister of State for Tourism, hit back at Gandhi’s allegation, calling it “fake news.” He said the suggestion that the “prime minister of India would transfer data to some company in the US” was outrageous.
French Vigilante Hacker Tweets About Modi App
Gandhi was referring to a media report in which a French vigilante hacker in a series of tweets alleged that the personal data, including email IDs, photos, names, and other details of users of Modi's mobile app, were being sent to a third-party domain without their consent.
The Congress President had also accused the mainstream media of "burying this critical story, as always".
Gandhi's remarks came days after the BJP accused the Congress of compromising national security by roping in political data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica to run its 2019 election campaign. The firm is allegedly involved in social media data manipulation.
(With inputs from IANS.)
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