Maha MoS Satej Patil questions Centre’s silence on Tek Fog expose; calls it severe breach of privacy

Maharashtra minister of State for Home, Satej Patil

Maharashtra minister of State for Home, Satej Patil has raised questions over the silence of the government of India and Information and Technology ministry over #TekFog expose. He has also demanded that the Centre should take cognizance of it by keeping the party politics aside.

In his tweet, Patil has said, "I am astounded by the silence of the GoI & IT Ministry over the #TekFog expose. A political party is using fan APP for mas targeting and harassment of Indian citizens and journalists especially women journalists, hacked into inactive WhatsApp numbers of Indian citizens. This is a severe crime a& a global shame to our democratic country! I request @GoI-Meity, @Ashwini Vaishnaw to go beyond party lines and take impartial cognizance of this issue at the earliest."

In his tweet, on Saturday, the minister had said, "Disturbing yet not shocking that the Tek Fog app is used by the BJP to manipulate social media to target and maximize harassment of Indian citizens, including that of female journalists. #TekFog."

Patil who is also a senior Congress leader from Maharashtra further added, "This app also uses WhatsApp numbers of Indian Citizens for mass messaging without the user even knowing! This is highly offensive & a severe breach of every Indian citizen's privacy."

Earlier, TMC leader Derek O'Brien had sought a parliamentary panel meet to address the tek fog issue. In a letter, he had said, "use of such manipulative technology is a danger to national security and democratic rights of free speech and unfettered media".

In an investigative report by the online publication The Wire, it was revealed that Tek fog is a secret app used to manipulate trends on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp by BJP to automate hate attacks social media users. The app according to The Wire, could bypass the security features such as Captcha in social media platforms and had ability for app operatives to delete or remap all existing accounts at a moment's notice. This feature theoretically allowed them to destroy all incriminating evidence of their past activity, the article said. The app also hacked into inactive Whatsapp numbers of Indian citizens to mass forward messages.