Andhra Pradesh government claims no misuse of voters’ data collected by volunteers

As the data being collected by village/ward volunteers had turned a political flashpoint @ysjagan govt says to protect the integrity of the data, Grama Sachivalayams and Ward Sachivalayams (GSWS), dept has appointed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the implementation of… pic.twitter.com/x2QSKQ6a3O

— SNV Sudhir (@sudhirjourno) July 31, 2023

The Opposition parties, however, believe that these volunteers are the eyes and ears of the ruling YSRCP, often collecting sensitive data that could be exploited come elections.

Also Read: Opposition targets Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC in Andhra Pradesh

No misuse, assures GSWS

The Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), a political consultancy firm founded by ace strategist Prashant Kishor, has also come under intense scrutiny from the Opposition in Andhra Pradesh.

Opposition parties in the state have started raising concerns about the alleged misuse of citizens’ data and a breach of their privacy.

“The information collected is sent to the SDC through APIs on the apps and is stored there with multiple layers of security protocols and encryption. All the apps are developed with high-level security features and the information is always protected. No information is being stored on the phone, so there is no loss of the collected information even if the mobile phones are lost,” explained the GSWS Department in a statement.

“The mobile apps have many security features like ‘session time out’, which restricts them from using unauthorised apps, so that there is no misuse of information by GSWS staff,” it added.

Any information that is collected from the beneficiary is with the intention of providing benefits in the most transparent manner. To this end, only a limited number of details relevant to the schemes being given are collected from the household, the statement mentioned.

పారదర్శకంగా లబ్ధిదారుల ఎంపిక కోసమే సమాచార సేకరణ
-వాలంటీర్లు సేకరించే డేటా వారి ఫోన్లలో సేవ్‌ కాదు
-గ్రామ, వార్డు సచివాలయ సిబ్బంది సమాచారాన్ని దుర్వినియోగం చేసే అవకాశం ఏ మాత్రం లేదు
-ఆ సమాచారం భద్రతా ప్రొటోకాల్స్‌ అనుగుణంగా.. స్టేట్‌ డేటా సెంటర్‌ (SDC)లో సురక్షితంగా నిక్షిప్తం… https://t.co/EE364nXAbR pic.twitter.com/GPd67l4l2p

— Andhra Fact Check (@AndhraFactCheck) July 31, 2023

Also Read: Jagan gets personal, slams Pawan Kalyan

‘Only basic information collected’

When the Andhra government established the GSWS, consisting of both human resources and essential infrastructure, it said they were meant to ensure last-mile delivery of welfare schemes and other citizen-centric services in an efficient and effective manner.

Human resources consist of approximately 1.60 lakh employees from eight departments and approximately 2.54 lakh volunteers functioning across 15,004 secretariats.

The GSWS system is said to aim at providing government services and schemes to the doorsteps of people.

For this purpose, basic information about citizens is collected through various applications developed by the GSWS Department.

The GSWS staff also takes the eKYC (electronic Know Your Customer details) of citizens through biometrics after getting consent from each citizen. The eKYC and data are collected from the field to check the eligibility of the citizens for the schemes.

Also read: Who are the ‘volunteers’ — loved by YSRCP, hated by Opposition?

TCS to implement GSWS software

In order to protect the integrity of the data, the GSWS Department has — a tender process — appointed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the implementation of software applications through.

TCS develops and maintains various software components of the GSWS Department.

All data-protection laws are being followed thoroughly in the development of the software’s architecture, said the department.

The e-Gov team has gone through the architecture of data collection and vindicated its robustness, it added.

During data collection, the demographic data of the citizens is fetched from the Aadhaar server after the biometric authentication of each citizen and all the data is encrypted and stored at the SDC, said the department.

“Logical security measures are adopted to keep the systems from cyber attacks. Two-factor authentication, encryption, redundancy, and failover plans keep the data safe and secure. The SDC uses an advanced stateful packet and application-layer inspection firewall, a virtual private network (VPN), and web cache solutions that enable internet clients to retrieve static content from the cache by improving network security. All the apps which collect data are compliant with the data protection laws issued by the Government of India,” a senior official added.

The data that is collected is shared with different departments within the state only after an agreement is signed with special terms and conditions in regard to data safety between GSWS and the respective department. And the data is shared through highly-secure APIs only and not through any offline mode.

Also read: Protests intensify over Pawan Kalyan comment about ‘volunteers’ 

‘Previous government also collected data’

Another senior government official said that many details of citizens were collected during the Praja Sadhikara Survey, during the regime of the previous government.

“The information is/was not used in any manner for DBT (direct benefit transfer) by the earlier regime. Some personal information, which was irrelevant to benefit/service disbursement, was collected like home construction type, immigrant status, GPS of each home, photos of the house, list of electronic devices, value of the house etc. Data diversion/theft collected during the Praja Sadhikara Survey is also under investigation,” the senior official added.

The data collected by the current government include household members, caste, Aadhaar number (masked format), religion, address (present and permanent), mobile number, occupation, date of birth, gender, relationships, and marital status.

Also read: AP political parties wants voter privacy secured, but can’t have it