Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a direct jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi after reports alleged that the offical app of the PM, Narendra Modi, may be sending private information of users to a US company.
Gandhi wrote on Twitter, ‘Hi! My name is Narendra Modi. I am India's Prime Minister. When you sign up for my official App, I give all your data to my friends in American companies’. See his tweet:
All India Congress Committee (AICC) has been running a #deleteNaMoapp on Twitter since Saturday after a French security researcher Elliot Alderson claimed that the the app is creating users profile, taking their device information, as well as personal data, and sending it to a third-party domain called in.wzrkt.com, which apparently belongs to the US company.
This Android app is allegedly sharing private information of users to a third-party US company Clever Tap without their consent, Indian Express reported. See tweet:
So who is Elliot Anlderson? Alderson’s first moniker on Twitter was Baptiste Robert. In an interview to Androidpit, Alderson said that he is was “a 28-year-old French guy”, who exposes shady practices of smartphone makers, and recently began focusing on the loopholes in Aadhaar.
In a profile of his, The Scroll, reported that “The name “Elliot Alderson”, inspired by the vigilante hacker character of the same name from the television series Mr Robot, was chosen by him because he thought that it would be fun since a lot of people know the series and the Alderson character it revolves around who takes on the global elite using his superior hacking skills.”
His recent tweet on Namo app have come handy for Congress, which was slugging with the BJP over association with Cambridge Analytica that is facing ire over Facebook data theft.
Youth Congress, Odisha Congress and National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) were also aggressively raising voice to alert people against the NaMoApp in Twitter. The app has 5 million users according to the Google Playstore information.
Alderson says, personal information of users such as email, photo, gender and name are also being shared. Device information that is being shared includes operating software and network type.
“When you create a profile in the official @narendramodi #Android app, all your device info (OS, network type, Carrier …) and personal data (email, photo, gender, name, …) are send without your consent to a third-party domain called http://in.wzrkt.com,”” reads Alderson’s tweet.
This domain, he adds, has been classified as a phishing link by the company G-Data. Meanwhile, the website is apparently hosted by GoDaddy, Indian Express reported. He also tweeted: “After a quick search, this domain belongs to an American company called @CleverTap.
According to their description,” #CleverTap is the next generation app engagement platform. It enables marketers to identify, engage and retain users and provides developers.” Elliot Alderson has flagged security issues before.
Earlier this year, he claimed that OnePlus, the samrtphone manufacturer has allegedly sent clipboard data back to a Chinese server and that the OxygenOS, OnePlus’s customized version beta called badwords.txt may have helped the company to identify some data and send it back to a Chinese server without a user’s consent.
