The Congress had targeted the Narendra Modi app amid reports that it sent user data to a US-based company
Highlights
- Narendra Modi app sent user data to US-based firm: security researcher
- Smriti Irani scoffed at the Congress for deleting its own app
- Congress says URL for their membership app has been defunct for a while
As charges of
sharing user data doubled back to it, the Congress today took down its app. The Congress has been targeting the ruling BJP over the Narendra Modi app - the official mobile app of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi - amid allegations that it sent user data to a US-based company without consent. Congress president
Rahul Gandhi yesterday posted: "Hi! My name is Narendra Modi. I am India's Prime Minister. When you sign up for my official app, I give all your data to my friends in American companies. Ps. Thanks mainstream media, you're doing a great job of burying this critical story, as always."
Today, the BJP returned the favour, with leaders like Union Minister Smriti Irani joining the tweet-war.Smriti Irani also scoffed at the Congress for deleting its own app.
Congress's Divya Spandana claimed that the membership page on the Congress app had been defunct for a while: "We don't collect any personal data through the INC app. We discontinued it a long time ago. It was being used only for social media updates. We collect data for membership and this is through our website, this is encrypted."
The allegations have exploded alongside a massive scandal over the misuse of personal data of Facebook users by the disgraced research group Cambridge Analytica to help political parties.
This morning, Rahul Gandhi posted another trenchant Tweet, with the hashtag #DeleteNaMoApp.Amit Malviya, who heads the BJP's IT cell, hit back after the Congress pulled down its app.The BJP has conceded that it is sharing information but also stresses that there is no wrongdoing. "Contrary to Rahul's lies , fact is that data is being used for only analytics using third party service, similar to Google Analytics," the party says.