NEW DELHI : Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday accused the Prime Minister of data breach via his official Narendra Modi app, taking forward the war of words between the Congress and BJP over the Facebook data mining scandal.In his tweet, Mr. Gandhi also attacked the media saying on Twitter, “Ps. Thanks mainstream media, you’re doing a great job of burying this critical story, as always.”
His attack on the Prime Minister was based on a media report in which a French vigilante hacker has purportedly alleged that data was stolen from his official App — NaMo App — without consent of the users. “Hi! My name is Narendra Modi. I am India’s Prime Minister. When you sign up for my official App, I give all your data to my friends in American companies,” Gandhi tweeted.
Hitting back at Rahul’s charge of data theft by the Narendra Modi app, BJP said the App, unlike most Apps, gives access to users in ‘guest mode’.Gandhi’s tweet was referring to a claim by French researcher Elliot Alderson, who alleged that information of those who have downloaded the app was being provided to third party US company Clever Tap without the users’ consent.

The claim has escalated the slugfest between the BJP and the Congress that have accused each other of using the services of Cambridge Analytica, the UK-based company at the heart of the Facebook data mining scandal.
The BJP has alleged that Gandhi used the firm to influence Gujarat elections, while the Congress has rubbished the charge and asked if the government would lodge an FIR against Cambri

dge Analytica and its India partner Oveleno Business Intelligence (OBI).Gandhi had accused the Modi government of seeking to divert attention from its past “lies” about 39 Indians killed in Iraq by “inventing” the data mining charges against the Congress.

India has issued a notice to Cambridge Analytica, giving it time till March 31 to name its clients and data source. The firm is also the subject of a similar investigation in the United Kingdom and United States.
The BJP reacted on Twitter saying, it did not expect “any better” from the Congress chief. The BJP said “contrary to Rahul’s lies, fact is that data is being used for only analytics using third party service, similar to Google Analytics. Analytics on the user data is done for offering users the most contextual content.”

It said the app gives access to users in ‘guest mode’ without even any permission or data. The permissions required are all contextual and cause-specific, the party said.
“Rahul Gandhi is no match for Narendra Modi. But seeing his fright about the NaMo App, is very amusing. When his bots tried to trend #DeleteNamoApp day before yesterday, the popularity and downloads of NaMo App only increased,” it said.(With Agency Inputs ).