The MahaMitra app was launched to select and appreciate persons who used social media effectively, from each of the talukas in Maharashtra.
Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday alleged that a social media app, launched by the Maharashtra government, was sending personal user data to a third-party. The allegation comes in the wake of war of words between the BJP and Congress over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'NaMo App' and mobile applications launched by the Congress.
"The Maharashtra government developed a MahaMitra app on February 1. On February 3, MahaNews (the state government's news platform) said this would help speedy communication and give more opportunities to the youth," said Chavan, who had earlier raised the issue in the state legislative assembly. The MahaMitra app was launched to select and appreciate persons who used social media effectively, from each of the talukas in Maharashtra.
"When we did a deep-dive on this app and decoded the software, we realised that the data was not being sent to the state's Directorate General of Information and Public Relations (DGIPR) nor to the Maharashtra government server, but to a private charitable trust called Anulom," he added.
The trust, which was registered in 2016, had one Atul Prabhakar Vaze as the CEO, who in a video had said he would work under CM Devendra Fadnavis. "The software source code of the Anulom and MahaMitra app are similar," said Chavan, adding that the MahaMitra app collected personal data of its users including their use of social media platforms, contacts and likes to create their social media profile.
This data was being hosted on a server in Germany, he charged, adding that these concerns were similar to the issues raised with the Namo app. Questioning if the consent of app users was taken before mining this data, Chavan added that the state government would be responsible for its misuse for marketing and political purposes.
"There has been a tremendous progress in data science and computer storage capabilities. When these two combine, there is data weaponisation," warned Chavan. He added that since data was "an extremely powerful tool, it had to be used responsibly."
"Psychological targeting will be a major issue in the future," he said, pointing at how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had publically apologised in the Cambridge Analytica controversy. Chavan questioned why a huge list of 66 data points were collected from farmers, who were filing Aadhaar-based biometric applications for agriculture loan waivers. He further warned that information and data could be misused and used for "psychological micro-targeting of a target audience."
"Why was a private charitable trust given this work by the Maharashtra government? What is the relationship between the Maharashtra government and this trust? Was any contract or official agreement inked?... who will ensure the privacy of this data?" questioned Chavan.
Later, minister of state Dr Ranjit Patil told the state assembly that \"there was no chance of the information being misused" with only details like name, address and numbers of those registering being collected being safe with the government. Anulom, was helping the state sans any fees to take the concept to people, and there was no relationship between the Anulom app and MahaMitra.
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 "Prithviraj Chavan")
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