HYDERABAD: In this vast data market where sensitive details of students are being sold to unknown clients without permission, one of the owners of such a site claimed they were “helping students” and that there were “no security issues with their database.”
Speaking to Express via email, Prashant Subramani, one of the founders of www.studentsdatabase.in, a site that sells details of students such as places of residence and phone numbers, said, “Database with us (sic) is shared with educational institutions with various kinds of courses and fees structures (sic). Institutes call parents and students and brief them about the courses available with them. Usually, students receive around 25-30 calls from various colleges in the admission season (sic)”.
He defended the sale of data claiming: “There are many small private education institutions in our country who cannot afford huge marketing budgets. Tele-calling and SMS are simple workable options for them.”
When asked about the sources of their database, Subramani clarified and stressed that they do not "hack" to acquire databases. "There is no source in particular to get these files. Those who have the database available with them send us mail or call us. We check if the records are genuine and purchase the same from them. Please be assured that we do not hack the data from any server or neither directly buy it from any department."
Subramani also went on to claim that their databases were safe as most phone numbers “belong to parents (mostly fathers)” (sic). There are high chances, he said, that students keep changing their mobile numbers frequently (sic). However, on Friday, when Express contacted a number mentioned in the database, it was easily able to reach out to the student’s family. The data at student database.in is up for grabs for anyone willing to shell out anything between Rs 1,000 to Rs 4,000.
"The older ones are available for free download. Registered members can download it by just login into their account." Free samples are also available for non-registered users," the site said.
While the Centre has proposed a law for data protection and constituted a committee of experts under Justice Srikrishna, it is yet to submit its report.