Parliament panel grills Twitter officials over data security, privacy

A parliamentary panel Friday questioned top Twitter officials over a whistleblowers revelations on its India operations and gave them a dressingdown as their replies on the issue of data security and privacy were not satisfactory sources saidTop Twitter executives including Senior Director Public Policy Samiran Gupta Director Public Policy Shagufta Kamran deposed before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology chaired by senior Congress leader Shashi TharoorThe panel questioned them about the reports on the former head of Twitter security Peiter Zatkos allegations the microblogging site knowingly allowed the Indian government to place its agents on the company payroll where they had direct unsupervised access to the companys systems and user dataThe Twitter officials denied any such thing having happened and refused there was any data security breach in India sources in the panel saidAlso Read Uttar Pradesh CM reviews preparations for demolition of Noida towersThe members also questioned the social media giants officials if their data security policies is in synch with local policies and with the single global privacy policyThey also asked how the microblogging site handles conflicts in national privacy policies of different countries with the sources saying the executives didnt give satisfactory repliesThey also evaded questions about data safety and privacy a member said following which they were reprimanded by the MPsZatkos allegations were reported by international media housesAlso Read IRCTC withdraws tender for hiring consultant to monetise passenger dataTwitter has already stated it was a false narrative and the allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on the company its customers and its shareholdersThe Tharoorled panel has been holding meetings with various stakeholders including tech companies social media firms ministries and other regulators on the issue of citizens data security and privacyThe parliamentary committee is also working on a comprehensive report on data privacy and securityBesides Tharoor Congress MP Karti Chidambaram TMC MP Mahua Moitra TRS MP Ranjith Reddy BJPs Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and CPIMs John Brittas attended the meetingThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever