The Kerala High court on Friday directed the State Government to anonymize all data collected from citizens before allowing access to US company Sprinklr even as it expressed concern over the confidentiality of information gathered from COVID-19 patients being handed to a foreign firm.
During hearing of a batch of petitions including those from Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and BJP State President K Surendran, a Division Bench comprising Justice Devan Ramachandran and Justice TR Ravi restrained Sprinklr from committing any act which will be directly or indirectly in breach of confidentiality of data entrusted to them as per the contract.
The following directions were passed by Js. Dewan Ramchandran and Js. T.R Ravi during the hearing-
- Sprinklr to be allowed to access data only after completion of anonymisation. All the data that has been collected by Kerala Government is to be anonymised.
- Any act in breach of confidentiality of data entrusted with Sprinklr by Kerala Government under the contract is restrained.
- Sprinklr shall not deal with data entrusted to them by Government directly or indirectly in conflict with confidentiality clause in contract and will return data as soon as their contractual obligations are over. Data is not to be disclosed to any third party by them.
- Injunction has been put on Sprinklr from advertisement of data or representation to third parties that they have access to data of Covid-19 cases.
- Sprinklr has been restrained from commercial exploitation of data available with it directly or indirectly.
- Injunction has been put on using of name or logo of Kerala Government by Sprinklr for its promotional acts.
- Informed consent of citizens has to be taken by Government before data collection that their data will be used by a third party foreign company.
On being informed by State that Sprinklr has already transferred data with it to control of Government, Court directed that any residual data shall be immediately transferred.
Statement of AAG, K Ravindranath, was recorded that State Government has no objections in approaching Central Government for availing services of Central agencies substituting Sprinklr Inc.
Js. Devan Ramachandran observed, “State has taken view that they cannot fight Covid-19 without Sprinklr. We don’t want to interfere now as that will be interpreted as Court interfering with COVID19 control measures.”
Court also expressed serious reservations about statement of the State and said that it was not aware of how company was selected and what are their credentials. The Court said it could interfere in such a matter but as the matter relates to COVID-19, so the Court is not interfering to create a balance.
Court stated that it was worried that IT Secretary did not consult Law Department even when many legal issues were involved. More problems cannot be created because there is an emergency. “The cure cannot be worse than the problem”, remarked Js. Devan Ramachandran.
Js. Ramachandran asked, “Can a head of Department enter into a contract on his own under Article 299?”
The bench stated that it was not against Government but wanted to seek clarifications regarding certain issues from it.
Cyber lawyer N.S Nappinai explained the aspects of deal representing the State before Bench and stated that there is no data retention after agreement period and that Sprinklr has a proven track record and they were providing dashboard services to WHO. Court expressed its dissatisfaction and stated there is difference between dashboard service and SaaS.
-India Legal Bureau