The back up data of COVID-19 patients and those under surveillance stored in the server of the U.S.-based data analytical firm Sprinklr Incor has been permanently deleted, according to an affidavit filed by the company before the Kerala High Court.
The company has asserted that no data whatsoever received by the company prior to the High Court directives on the issue passed on April 24 remain with the company.
The affidavit said that, in fact, the government had asked the company to destroy all the processed back up data in response to its clarification letter. It had sought clarification on the issue as the High Court did not specifically direct the company to delete all back data from its server. The company also pointed out that as deletion of data without authorisation of the State government would have been an irretrievable process and potentially a violation of the terms of the contract inked between the government and the company.
The State government in its reply letter said that as entire data has been transferred to the government-owned cloud web space in Amazon Web Services, managed and controlled by the C-DIT, the backup data should be destroyed.
The company also sought to withdraw a clarification petition filed before the High Court in this regard.
The State government in an affidavit had submitted that no data had been shared with Sprinklr after it was transferred to the C-DIT cloud space by April 20 and that the company did not have access to the system.
The government had also submitted that Director of Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) and Registrar of C-DIT had been directed to ensure that all data collected and collated were anonymised before it was shared with any third party service provider or used with any software for processing it,
The government pointed out that it was yet to receive any positive reply from the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to its letter seeking to provide details of the information system application available with National Informatics Centre or other agencies so that it could meet the functional requirements of the COVID-19-related activities.
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