New Delhi: The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has written to the Election Commission (EC) over electoral malpractices and expressed concerns regarding voter data privacy citing The Wire’s investigative series on the unchecked use of booth management apps by political parties.
In its letter, addressed to chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar and elections commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, IFF referred to The Wire’s reports that identified a network of data brokers and booth management apps that supply voter data to political parties under the garb of providing unofficial voter slips.
The use of such apps “breaches provisions of the Model Code of Conduct, 2024 (“MCC”) and creates a digital ecosystem that enables illicit voter profiling and micro-targeting,” the letter said.
We wrote to @ECISVEEP to bring to their notice a two-part investigative report by @digitaldutta & @kachamangobite shedding light on the use of booth management apps by parties & candidates in #Elections2024 which raise alarms for voter privacy.
🧵1/3https://t.co/o6PPCBkn3O— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) July 5, 2024
The Wire had reported that these apps allow booth level agents to access voter data, including voters’ phone numbers that are not provided by the EC, and can be used to conduct surveys on behalf of candidates. The questions in these surveys range from the voter’s profession, their demands from the government, their opinion on schemes and sometimes even their caste.
“Parties can identify favourable and unfavourable voters through this mechanism and target them for campaigning in another election cycle. They may even attempt to bribe the voters or manipulate voter rolls to their electoral benefit,” IFF said.
More interestingly, rival candidates were sold the same voter data from a common database. This means that a single data broker supplied the software and voter data to all the apps functioning under different brand names.
On reverse engineering the apps, The Wire found a list of clients to whom the application was sold, the election it was used for, the salesperson who sold the app and the brand name that app was sold under.
The reports identified at least 4,000 candidates, across party lines, who used these apps over the last few years for local corporations, state assembly and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The list, published in full, can be accessed here.
Any information collected by the booth-level agents of various political parties can potentially reach their rival candidates through these data brokers.
“Though the ECI broadly acknowledges that candidates are using apps to collect voter data, it did not adequately address the issue of voter privacy and usage of this personal data in this election cycle,” IFF said in its letter.
“We believe that the illicit use of personal voter data is a prevalent and insidious issue in the Indian electoral system, and is an currently unregulated space which the ECI must fill. Though the 2024 Election has passed, we remain hopeful that ECI will take action against these practices promptly to curb them at state and bye-election levels as well,” it added.
Read part 1 of The Wire’s investigation into booth management apps used during elections. The second part looks at the network of companies behind these apps. Read it here.
