KOCHI: The Kerala High Court has observed that there was no ulterior motive on the part of the state government in collecting data of persons under quarantine during the Covid-19 pandemic and sharing it with New York–based software company Sprinklr. The court also noted that no data breach was revealed to have occurred in the case.
The court observed that Sprinklr Inc. had only provided the software tools, while the data continued to remain stored with the state.
However, it agreed with the petitioners’ submission that the then Principal Secretary of the Electronics and Information Technology Department ought not to have entered into the agreement with Sprinklr without obtaining proper cabinet approval or the consent of the chief minister.
Calling this a “gross dereliction of duty,” the court said that appropriate steps should be taken by the state and that such a situation should not recur in the future.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar V M made these observations while disposing of a petition filed by MLA Ramesh Chennithala, who had raised concerns about the possibility of personal data being exposed to a third party and alleged that the agreement had been hurriedly executed without adequate safeguards for data protection or Cabinet approval.