AP House Committee on Pegasus submits interim report on 'data theft'

Amaravati, Sep 20 (PTI): It was supposed to investigate "the purchase and illicit use of Pegasus spyware by the previous Chandrababu Naidu government" but the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly House Committee made no mention of the issue, in its interim report presented on Tuesday.

Instead, the Committee concluded that "it appears that there was unauthorised and improper transmission of large amounts of sensitive data from the State Data Centre to unknown external servers during the period November 30, 2018 to March 31, 2019".

The seven-member Committee, headed by Tirupati MLA Bhumana Karunakar Reddy, only tabled two copies of the report in the Assembly.

Karunakar Reddy said a "deeper investigation" was needed into the issue and a final report would be presented after that.

Portions of the interim report, however, were in circulation on WhatsApp.

"The Committee found that a large volume of data was transmitted from 18 State Data Centre (SDC) servers hosting PSS (Praja Saadhikara Survey) data to several external servers during the period and that there was no permissible purpose or reason to transmit such data to external IP addresses belonging to Google LLC. Google was not able to identify the users of these IP addresses," the interim report said.

It said the Committee was informed that the AP Computer Security Operations Centre monitored the servers and network devices in the SDC.

The Police Intelligence Department conducted a detailed analysis and reviewed the logs as part of the investigation and submitted a preliminary report on their findings.

In its response to the request made by the Committee, Google said the IP addresses provided belonged to it and were not assigned to a specific user.

On March 21 this year, the AP Legislative Assembly decided to constitute the House Committee to probe the purchase and illicit use of Pegasus spyware by the previous Chandrababu Naidu government, in the wake of the allegation made by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Legislative Affairs Minister Buggana Rajendranath had on the day moved a motion in the Assembly on the Pegasus issue saying it was clear from Mamata Banerjee's statement that the Chandrababu government purchased spyware technology "either officially or unofficially".

"It is clear that the Chandrababu regime acquired such technology to hack the phones and other gadgets of individuals to listen to conversations and also watch the activities live through spyware. Naturally, their targets were political leaders, especially the opposition leader, industrialists, film personalities and even wives and husbands," Buggana had said on the occasion.

The House Committee was formally constituted on March 25 under the chairmanship of Bhumana Karunakar Reddy, with five members belonging to the YSR Congress and one rebel TDP MLA sailing with the ruling party.

Talking to reporters after the interim report was tabled in the House, the Committee member Abbayya Chowdary alleged that 14 TB data was stolen during the previous Chandrababu regime and sent to an App called Seva Mitra.

Using the data, the TDP sought to delete lakhs of names (of YSRC supporters) from the voters' list, he alleged.

"It happened when Chandrababu's son Lokesh was the Information Technology Minister. We will not leave him," Chowdary added.

Public Accounts Committee Chairman Payyavula Kesav rebuffed the YSRC allegation and asked if the Election Commission would delete names from the voters' list if the TDP asked for it.

"They are only trying to make something out of nothing. The House Committee was supposed to be on Pegasus but not a reference was made to it, even as a suspicion," Kesav pointed out.

It was the YSRC that stole the public data and has been going round the households in the name of a government outreach programme, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)