Hyderabad: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) that began probing the IT Grids India Pvt Ltd for alleged possession of sensitive data of AP voters said that the company has data pertaining to the people in Telangana state too.
“IT Grids India Pvt Ltd has sensitive data belonging to the citizens of Telangana state. It is found that the data of AP citizens was misused. What the company did with the TS data is to be probed,” said SIT chief Stephen Raveendra, the inspector-general of police (in-charge of West Zone).
“Nobody involved in the case will be spared and everyone is equal before the law,” the IG said.
The SIT began investigating the data breach case on Thursday, collecting the outcome of investigations done by the Hyderabad and Cyberabad police, who have registered cases into the complaints that IT Grids India, located at Madhapur, is possession of data of AP voters.
SIT personnel collected files from the SR Nagar and Madhapur police, and interacted with the investigators.
Prima facie, the Cyberabad police has seized some material from IT Grids office, which on verification turned out to be personal information of AP citizens. “Some sort of data with the company was available in the public domain, but much of it was private. We will find how the data landed with the company, who gave it and what was the purpose,” Mr Raveendra said.
He said a complaint was received on February 22, about the unauthorised possession and misuse of the data AP. citizens. Cyberabad police teams went to the IT Grids office the next day, only to find out the functioning of the Sevamitra application but did not to seize any material.
During the course of investigation, it was been found that the app was updated and some features were deleted. “Features like colour photographs of voters, geographic address and some others were disabled in the app after its update on February 27, after the initial complaint. The reason for the sudden removal of the features has to be found,” Mr Ravindra said.
He said that if any people of TS or AP found their voter details deleted or personal information was misused, they can lodge a complaint with the Special Investigation Team.
Meanwhile, the AP government has formed a SIT to investigate the alleged case of data theft by the Telangana state police and the YSRC, which was registered at the Thullur police station, Guntur district, on Thursday. The TS police had formed the SIT on Wednesday.
The AP government issued the order on Thursday night for investigation of Cr.No.48/2019 filed under IPC Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 418 (cheating with knowledge of causing loss), 420 (cheating), 380 (theft), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 167 (framing incorrect document to to cause injury), 177 (furnishing false information) and 182 (false information to mislead public servant).
