The Congress has rejected the State government’s position that it had employed the U.S.-based firm Sprinklr in relative haste to harness the power of big data analytics to combat the COVID-19 outbreak.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Mullappally Ramachandran on Saturday accused Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of having exploited the national adversity to allow a ‘blacklisted’ foreign firm to siphon off valuable personal medical information of citizens without their informed consent.
Nearly 1.75 lakh Keralites under observation for COVID-19 symptoms had volunteered their sensitive personal health information to field workers in good faith. At a stroke, Mr. Vijayan had betrayed their sincerity. He had allowed the IT Secretary to bypass the Cabinet and sign a contract with Sprinklr.
Confidentiality
He said Mr. Vijayan had not ensured the confidentiality of the data. Sprinklr held the proprietary right of the information, and it could sell the pricey data to health-care companies or pharmaceutical businesses without the government’s knowledge. Mr. Vijayan had stacked the decks in Sprinklr’s favour. The government had no legal jurisdiction over the data in possession of Sprinklr. Only a court in the U.S. could adjudicate on any contractual dispute.
The Opposition’s foray against the government came on a day when IT Secretary M. Shivsankar appeared on two news channels to make the government’s case that the deal was above board. The government direly needed an entity which could crunch a considerable amount of health data to identify infection patterns to streamline the State’s COVID-19 containment strategy. Sprinklr agreed to provide the service without charge. The arrangement did not warrant the prior vetting of the finance and legal departments. The C-DIT would own and analyse the data henceforth. Mr. Vijayan is likely to respond to the allegations on Monday.
BJP demand
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president K. Surendran has accused the government of having accorded leeway to Sprinklr to monetise the health data. He said a Central agency should probe the ‘scam’ and also investigate Mr. Shivsankar’s ‘junkets’ to the U.S.
