Cong questions govt after man held for data breach of 67 crore people, organisations

The Congress on Sunday sought clarification from the government over the theft of personal data of nearly 67 crore individuals and organisations, asserting that this was an attack on the privacy and security of Indians.

The Congress's assertion came after the Cyberabad Police on Saturday said they arrested a person who was allegedly involved in stealing, holding and selling of personal and confidential data of 66.9 crore individuals and organizations belonging to 24 states and eight metropolitan cities.

Tagging a media report on the case, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet in Hindi, "How and why was personal information of 67 crore people of India stolen? Who stole the data of the army and how?"

Also Read | US Congress members warned of significant health data breach

"This is an attack on the privacy and security of Indians and this is unacceptable to us. The government should immediately clarify on this matter," Ramesh said.

A press release from the police said the accused, Vinay Bhardwaj, was found possessing data of students of edu-tech organisations and also holds consumer/ customer data of major organisations like GST, Road transport organisations of various states, major e-commerce portals, social media platforms and fintech companies.

"The accused who was arrested on Friday was found selling personal and confidential data of about 66.9 crore individuals and organisations maintained in 104 categories," it said.

Some of the important data held by the accused included the data of defence personnel, government employees, PAN card holders, data of 9th, 10th, 11 & 12th standard students, senior citizens, Delhi electricity consumers, D-MAT account holders, mobile numbers of various individuals, NEET students, high net worth individuals, insurance holders, credit card and debit card holders among others, the release said.