Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi on Saturday said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre is using taxpayers’ money to “snoop” on people.
Singhvi said BJP has a “perennial, habitual, repetitive and ingrained tendency… to act as big brother and intrude into every aspect of your (public) life and every aspect of your privacy”.
He was referring to a tender floated by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in April. The tender stated that it hoped to create a 24X7 social media communication hub, which would monitor people’s daily activities. The government had said that this would help them gauge the public ‘sentiment’ towards schemes.
The policy came under sharp criticism for its violation of fundamental right to privacy.
“The tender does not have even a single safeguard against invasion of privacy,” Singhvi said.
See Singhvi’s speech here:
Highlights of the AICC Press briefing by Spokesperson @DrAMSinghvi on violation of the privacy of Indian citizens by Modi Govt. pic.twitter.com/MqsrejJ3Zh
— Congress (@INCIndia) June 1, 2018
Reading from the tender he pointed out that the Modi government is eyeing at an unbelievably huge amount of private information to be collected through this “hub”.
“Digital media chatter from all core social media platforms, as well as digital platforms like news, blogs and forums, along with a proprietary mobile insights platform, in a single system providing real-time insights, metrics and other valuable data,” Singh quoted.
He added this “hub” would use new tools that would be able to “listen” and “respond” to various Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and Play Store posts.
Besides, it will also aim to follow email, news, blogs, complaint sites, and forums, Singh said.
An NGO, Internet Freedom Foundation also sent a request for withdrawal of the tender to the MIB on Wednesday.