As if the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal and the recent data breach involving Aadhaar weren't enough, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Sunday accused the Prime Minister of leaking Narendra Modi app data and giving it to American companies.
Narendra Modi Android app, the personal mobile application of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, is allegedly sharing private information of users to a third-party US company Clever Tap without their consent, a French security researcher Elliot Alderson has claimed. Alderson shared a series of tweets claiming that when users create a profile on Narendra Modi Android app, their device information (OS, network type, Carrier), as well as personal data (email, photo, gender, name), is sent to a third-party domain called in.wzrkt.com.
“When you create a profile in the official @narendramodi #Android app, all your device info (OS, network type, Carrier …) and personal data (email, photo, gender, name, …) are send without your consent to a third-party domain called http://in.wzrkt.com,”,” read Alderson’s tweet.
However, BJP has denied the allegations, saying the app does not ask for blanket permissions when started and “even allows access to users in ‘guest mode without even any permission for data.
“The Narendra Modi App is a unique app, which unlike most apps, gives access to users in ‘guest mode’ without even any permission or data… The app does not ask for blanket permissions when the app is started,” said a BJP source.
Sources said the permissions required are all “contextual and cause-specific”. For example, a selfie campaign requires access to the camera and/or photo gallery.
In a series of tweets, BJP also lashed out at Gandhi saying that all that he 'can do is scare the masses about technology while they continue to steal data using his 'Brahmastra' of Cambridge Analytica'.
The researcher said that the domain has been classified as a phishing link by the company G-Data. Meanwhile, the website is apparently hosted by GoDaddy with whois information hidden.
