The Election Commission has backed out from its proposal to tie up with Internet giant Google on a voter facilitation service ahead of lok Sabha elections, following security concerns expressed by a cross-section of political parties, including Congress and BJP.
The full commission met on Thursday after Indian National Congress, the major party in the UPA Government opposed the proposed tie-up since none of the political parties were consulted on this sensitive decision.
The meeting chaired by Chief Election Comm-issioner VS Sampath was attended by Election Commissioners HS Brahma and SNA Zaidi along with other EC officials who deliberated on the responses from political parties and security issues arising from recent controversy surrounding Google being involved in leaking sensitive information to
US Intelligence agencies. A little after the EC meeting got over, no official statement came through. However, an EC official said, “After due consideration, the Commission has decided not to pursue it (tie-up with Google) any further.”
US-based Google had earlier this week made a formal presentation to the Election Commission proposing a tie-up on voter facilitation services ahead of general elections.
The US-based company, known for its fastest search engine, had proposed to provide electoral look-up services for citizens to help in Commission’s efforts to transmit better electoral information services.
The Commission had earlier signed a non-disclosure agreement with Google but had not shared or handed over any data to the internet giant so far even while it deliberated on the tie-up.
BJP also expressed concerns and said the issue could have been discussed first at an all-party meeting by EC. Questioning the EC’s move, a group of cyber security experts had written to the panel amid concerns over sharing of vital data pertaining to Indians to a foreign company.
These disclosures made by Edward Snowden had exposed the vulnerability of top internet companies whose servers were based in US.