Thiruvananthapuram: BJP Kerala State President, K. Surendran, approached the Kerala Governor, Arif Mohammad Khan, to appeal to him to order a probe into the shady deal that the Kerala government made with US-based company Sprinklr, run by a Keralite, Ragy Thomas.
The Kerala government is under the scanner after it was revealed that personal data of 1.7 lakhs of Keralites were uploaded to the server of the company.
K. Surendran also said that the Sprinklr scam was worth Rs.500 crore and demanded that the deal with the company must be terminated.
According to the deal, the government utilized a tool developed by the company to collect and process the data of about 1.7 lakh Keralites, who were under observation for COVID-19. However, it is alleged that the data was directly uploaded onto the server of Sprinklr, which is based in the US.
The opposition leader, Ramesh Chennithala, had come out with the accusation on 10 April putting the government on the dock for selling personal data to an American based company. He also alleged that the government did not follow the usual procedure when it signed the deal with the company. This raises more suspicions about the deal.
When the data can be stored on a government data center by institutions like C-DIT or IT Mission, it is surprising that it was uploaded to the company’s website in the United States.
However, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s defensive was weak saying that the company was offering its service free of cost to the Kerala government. He said that the data was safe and not being appropriated by Sprinklr.
Ramesh Chennithala also accused Chief Minister of compromising the personal health details of thousands of Keralites. He also said that the data can be used for commercial purposes by the company.
Surprisingly, on the national front, the communist party is against Aadhar because they say it is against the right to privacy of the citizens.