A file photo of Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi has written to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) demanding an enquiry into alleged data leak of medical college aspirants and installation of a mechanism to prevent the same. The CBSE denied any breach of data.
“Congress President @RahulGandhi writes to the Chairperson CBSE to order an enquiry into the data breach and to put in place effective safeguards to prevent future breaches,” the Congress party tweeted Tuesday.
This follows reports by some news websites that personal details of thousands of students who appeared for the national eligibility cum entrance test (NEET) were available for commercial transactions. NEET is a central entrance exam to select students for medical colleges.
Meanwhile, the CBSE Tuesday denied that there is any breach of data.
In a statement, the school board said the entire data of more than 1.32 million candidates of NEET 2018 was “maintained only in encrypted format with strict security measures with National Informatics Centre. So much so that, even in the print out of the confirmation page downloaded by the candidates, the vital details such as identification documents, mobile and email id are in the encrypted format”.
“There is no question of any breach of data or any misuse of data by CBSE,” the board said.
In the letter tweeted by Congress, Gandhi said he is “shocked by this wide scale theft of personal data that has compromised the privacy of candidates across the country. This highlights the serious lack of safeguards to prevent data breach, and calls into question the ability of the CBSE to ensure the sanctity of the examination process.”
“I strongly urge you to order an enquiry against the shocking lapse, and take action against the officials responsible for the same. In addition, I request you to put in additional safeguards to prevent the recurrence of such breaches,” Gandhi wrote.
As several high profile entrance exams have either gone or are going online, there is increasing apprehension about data security of students.
Data leaks have made it to national debates. From Aadhaar data leak to personal and financial data leak through a website of employees provident fund organization have attracted criticism from all quarters. The constitutionality of Aadhaar itself been challenged in the Supreme Court.
[“Source-livemint”]
