Vaishnavi Jayakumar

Now that the Unga Kanava Sollunga scheme is in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, I want to highlight something which went completely under the radar. And before trolls jump in, yes I do think CVS statements were problematic and condemnable. I personally think that what should have been addressed is not the ridiculous name of the scheme but the fact that taxpayers money of 40+ crore was spent in a process that involved data privacy risks and microtargetting. Screenshots below are the DIPR press release detailing how it works. Finding out someone's dream (or rather the purported intention being determining efficacy of implementation or citizen's inputs or welfare schemes/benefits) was only a massive cover for one of the largest privacy and personal data risks that we have seen play out before our eyes. At that time of this announcement, Twitter user @logic had written "Household surveys in AP, TS were common. Also had data malpractices of leaking this data to the ruling party. What was also common was incumbent govt was never re-elected. (Naidu, Jagan, BRS).So ₹43 Crore of taxpayer money to leak data to IT Cell?" And I had also shared his tweet and questioning whether this survey was not attracting citizen's privacy stalwarts.. When the media does not take up these issues with the gravity the situation demands and they instead jump onto whatever is sensational, then the rational voices go unheard. Minister Anbil Mahesh told Times of India exactly how it worked: 50,000 SHG volunteers -- private citizens, not govt employees -- fanned out to all 1.91 crore households. They pushed forms asking families to declare every welfare scheme they benefit from and list their top 3 “dreams”. Days later, the same volunteers returned to collect those filled forms stuffed with your personal data, before uploading everything via an app and issuing so-called dream cards. Scheme beneficiary information, household economic status & personal identification data are NOT meant to be accessed by people who are NOT government employees… And this was done at the cost to taxpayers around ₹43.52 crore Also, let us ask whats the HIDDEN cost? The privacy of 1.91 crore families in Tamil Nadu whose welfare data is now exposed to private citizens who have been made 'volunteers' When I first heard of this Unga Kanava Sollunga, I had already tweeted out my concerns loud and clear. Because the real issue was never the silly name that sounds like a meme. It was a cover-up for what I considered a calculated data leak? Pre-election surveillance? Intimidation Canvassing? All of the above? The Puttaswamy judgment made privacy a fundamental right. How does handing citizens’ welfare dependency status to random private individuals square with that? Do not dox the poor, and do not excavate so much into citizen's lives for the sole purpose of an election week. Do not seek to undermine democracy by these shameful techniques. This is the kind of thing that needs to be discussed. Not potshots, not distractions. Let us get real.

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Temporary inconvenience Today for a Better Chennai Egmore Tomorrow. #southernrailway