JOIN USDid Kerala government compromise health data privacy for coronavirus surveillance?
The Pinarayi Vijayan led left-front government in Kerala, which has been winning even international attention for effectively dealing with COVID-19, is now facing allegations of compromising health data of nearly 2 lakh people collected as part of COVID-19 surveillance as the data was being fed to a US-based firm.
All local bodies in Kerala were directed by the government to feed the basic health information of individuals to Software as a Service (SaaS) application, Sprinklr, a Malayali-headed social media analytics firm in the US. The data is stored on Amazon Web services cloud servers in Mumbai. This prompted the Opposition Congress in Kerala to allege that government was compromising health data of individuals with a US firm, that was also reportedly associated with the US presidential election campaign.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who also holds the state IT portfolio, refused to give convincing replies to queries over health data privacy. Even as a written explanation from the government on Monday evening mentions about a non-disclosure agreement to prevent misuse of the data, the government has not yet come out clean by making public such agreements.
The allegation assumed much significance as personal health details involved individual rights it even does not come under RTI's purview. Moreover, the data could be widely misused by corporate.
The Chief Minister's justification for the deal without any tenders was that Ragy Thomas, founder CEO of the firm, was quite impressed by the welfare measures being offered by the Kerala Government in the wake of COVID-19, especially to the elderly, as his parents in Kerala were also getting the benefit and hence he offered service of the firm's software to Kerala, free of cost. The CM evaded queries on data security and said that IT department would give an explanation.
The IT department's explanatory note said that the service of the the US firm was availed as the state government's IT agencies did not have enough tools or server capabilities to handle and analyse the unstructured big data being collected from various sources. Steps for enhancing Amazon Web Server Cloud of state government agency Centre for Development of Imaging Technology was being initiated and the data would be subsequently transferred from Sprinklr's server. The stated purpose of the Sprinklr's service is to have quick and effective interventions against COVID-19 especially since the coronavirus threat is likely to stay for a long period and there could be an influx of Malayalis in huge numbers from COVID-19 hit countries once the lockdown is relaxed.
The Opposition Congress in Kerala is making use of the row as it has been quite worried over the increasing popularity that the Pinarayi Vijayan government was gaining with the activities against COVID-19.