Hyderabad:-A day later voters alleged that their contact details are being leaked to the political parties, Srinivas Kodali An independent researcher had filed a complaint with the election commission against a possible breach of data by BJP.On Tuesday Srinivas Kodali has filled up his complaint in his complaint he said that the draft voters rolls of Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahabubnagar constituency of Telangana legislative council were published on 8thdecmber.”After this, I and several others in the constituency started receiving text messages from BJP floor leader and MLC N. Ramchander Rao about our enrollment in the voter rolls,” Srinivas Kodali said.
Naraparaju Ramchander Rao is from Mahabubnagar- Rangareddy-Hyderabad graduates constituency and his Term of office are to end in 2021 march. Meanwhile, denying the allegations the MLC said, “To file a complaint is digital illiteracy. We have the machinery and the cadres on the ground who collect phone numbers. The Election Commission gave the voter list not only to us but to every party. We match the voter list with our contact database and then send the texts.”
Naraparaju future said, “We have hired 100 people to work on the ground. They go door to door to collect details of voters. We have around 2.5 lakh contact details in our database which we gathered through years of hard work of our cadres.” He also said anyone can use their skills and machinery to get the mobile numbers. On December 14 many voters who are gonna cast their votes in the upcoming MLC graduate elections had received a text message from BJP MLC Naraparaju Ramchander Rao. The message the voters received was “I am extremely delighted to inform you that you have been successfully enrolled as a voter on the rolls of HYD-RR-MBNR graduates MLC constituency. Looking forward to your support and blessing to give me another opportunity to work for a better society. Regards, N Ramchander Rao, MLC, BJP Floor leader, TSLC.”.
Srinivas Kodali had also filed a complaint to cybercrime police alleging that MLC Naraparaju Ramchander Rao and the BJP party are illegally obtaining the mobile numbers of the voters of Telangana. Srinivas Kodali in his complaint said that “this data along with several others in Telangana could have likely been breached from the servers of the office of the chief electoral officer of Telangana where I have registered for the MLC graduate electoral elections,”. Srinivas Kodali had requested the cybercrime branch to conduct an investigation under Act 2008 section 66,70,72a and 80.
Many cyber activists have also raised questions regarding the security of the voter’s personal data. the general secretary of the free software movement of India, Kiran Chandra said. “Is this data being willfully distributed by Election Commission to the political parties? Or are these details being scrapped from the Election Commission’s website? In either case, this allows political parties to micro-target voters, a process over which EC has no guidelines for content regulation, and fails to protect the voter from harmful and micro-targeted messaging from political parties”.
