ERNAKULAM: Kerala high court has told the government to be more cautious in data security. There should not be data epidemic.
The court made this observation while considering the Sprinklr case on Friday.

“Privacy is important. The government should not try to hide facts and its stand in the issue is dangerous,” it said. It was Cyber expert advocate N S Nappinai from Mumbai who is appearing for the government. She told the court she was representing the government after she got an order in this regard from the Law Secretary.

Warning against hiding facts, the court asked whether the government had failed in disclosing that it is an American Company that is processing the data.

“Can you say that there was no leakage of data? It is not clearly mentioned in the affidavit. The issue should not be dealt lightly. And, don’t prescribe a treatment bigger than the disease.

The court is with the government in its fight against Covid but there should not be a situation when Indians will have to go to New York to argue a case,” it said.

Questioning why Sprinklr company’s credibility was not mentioned in the affidavit, the court pointed out that Sprinklr had given different software to WHO and Kerala government.

It also asked why such a sensitive issue was not perused by the Law department.

The government’s counsel submitted that the data of five lakh people had been collected and the entire data is safe. The government would be solely responsible for any data leak.

When asked why the data was not handed over to some Central agency, the government said in that case, the data processing would have got delayed.

The court also reminded that its priority was security of people and it had no intention to blame the government. The court criticised the decision taken by the IT secretary on his own without consulting with the Law department. It asked how the data of Five lakh people can be called big data and added that it did not accept the government’s argument that the life of people was more important than data.

Meanwhile, the government said that it would file a separate affidavit on why it did select Sprinklr company for processing the data.