Our data at risk: Another firm selling voter details online

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Following the arrest of several persons over allegations of voter data theft by a private firm in the city, another firm has been recently found selling sensitive information related to voters to its potential client.

The matter surfaced after the Election Commission of India (ECI) officials were alerted by an independent candidate from Bengaluru South constituency, Raju, about a phone call he received which offered to sell voter data for a price. Raju said that he also received a WhatsApp message which offered a demo of the software and promised to put the electoral rolls of the constituency at his disposal, send voters bulk messages through WhatsApp and get reports of the communication outreach efforts.

According to a report from News Minute, using the demo login credentials provided by the firm to Raju, it was found that the dashboard claimed to have data of 6.50 lakh voters, including 3,45,089 male, 2,93,000 female and 5,630 others.

The format of the data provided by the company also resembled the data stored on the ERONet portal, a webbased system for Electoral officials. The firm is also said to be advertising to sell the voters data to its clients for Rs 25,000. The portal allows the client to send customised messages, images, videos and PDF files to voters through WhatsApp, SMS, audio SMS and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered against unidentified individuals under various sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Representation of the People Act, 1951 by the South-East Division cybercrime police in Bengaluru. According to the police, the firm in question is said to be registered in Delhi in the month of April this year.

However the investigating officers have kept the name of the company confidential for time being. Meanwhile the Election Commission of India (ECI) officials are investigating whether the company, whose owners have not yet been traced, could have been used to bribe voters by depositing money into their accounts using UPI (Unified Payments Interface).

This is the second voter scam discovered in Karnataka in the last six months. In November 2022, ‘Chilume’, a private company, was found to have collected personal data from lakhs of Bengaluru voters. The company staff had posted it as officials of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

This is not the first scam:

There are reports that marketing agencies, which are actively engaged by political parties during election campaigns, especially in North India, have been involved in buying and selling voters details online- including names, contact numbers and locations- privately sharing them on the cloud at a fixed price for each data set. A few experts and industry players on the condition of anonymity said that there are multiple digital marketing agency owners that are handling campaigns for regional and national parties during the elections which include sending SMS messages to the voters. The automated work usually starts 2-3 months prior to elections, they added.