BJP and Congress slammed each other on data privacy of Indian citizens and how their respective mobile applications are breaching personal information of the people.
In the wake of a string of bank frauds and allegations related to data theft, the Congress on 26 March questioned how safe the people's money and their personal information were under the BJP-led government.
Senior Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said that the Modi government is a data leak government. On one hand there is data leak in banks with crores of rupees being siphoned off from the country by people like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallaya, and on the other there is leak of data happening in the country.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra lashed out at him and described Rahul Gandhi's accusation of "data theft" against Prime Minister Narendra Modi as "a classic case of technological illiteracy" and said the Congress president was rattled after his plan to influence the next Lok Sabha election with the help of Cambridge Analytica was "exposed".
Singhvi said when an official government app that seeks information on 15 points, what is the need for having a personal 'NaMo app' which seeks data on 22 indicators. He alleged that data from the prime minister's official app was shared with foreign firms without the consent of users
The ruling BJP has accused the opposition Congress of data "theft", saying it had taken down its app after the allegations came out in the open. It said that it was the Congress app that was "stealing" people's data and as soon as the BJP exposed it, the opposition party took it down from Google's Play Store, making it "Congress-mukt".
Singhvi said that BJP now wants data on our children as 13 lakh NCC cadets are being forced to download the application and fill in their information. He also alleged that PM Modi was misusing his position to build a personal database.
BJP leader Sambit Patra alleged that the Congress was stealing data of 20 crore Indian Facebook users with the help of Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm embroiled in charges of harvesting people's social media profiles illegally, but was caught, leaving Gandhi rattled.
The private firm was allegedly using data theft, sleaze and honey trap to influence the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he claimed.
He added, the new age is age of information and Modi has been maintaining communication with the masses and BJP leaders through his app, which the Congress does not want, he said, claiming that the country had suffered 10 years of "communication-less" governance during the UPA rule.
(With inputs from PTI)
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