NaMo app row: ‘Rahul Gandhi is technologically illiterate', says BJP

Patra also said that data collected by the NaMo app is used analysis, adding, "Data Analytics is not snooping."

"Rahul Gandhi is technologically illiterate" is what the BJP said to counter the Congress party's relentless attack on the Narendra Modi app (or NaMo app). BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra questioned Congress' technical know-how about the working of smartphone apps and said that most of the applications these days ask for permission to access 'contacts', 'SD Card', 'pictures' and 'location' in the phone.

Patra was responding to Rahul's tweet in which he said "Modi's NaMo App secretly records audio, video, contacts of your friends & family and even tracks your location via GPS..''

"This is a classic case of technological illiteracy of Rahul Gandhi...Even News apps by leading media companies ask for several permissions when downloaded and installed on phones. He lacks the basic understanding of how apps work," Patra said.

Patra also said that data collected by the NaMo app is used analysis, adding, "Data Analytics is not snooping."

"This new age is the age of information which Rahul ji will not understand," he said.

The NaMo app, which takes its name from the first two letters of the Prime Minister's name and second name, allows users to receive messages and emails from Modi. It has been downloaded over five million times, according to industry estimates.

In a bid to corner the Prime Minister over the NaMo app, Rahul accused Modi of misusing his position "to build a personal database with data on millions of Indians", hours after the BJP alleged that the main opposition party shared users' information to a Singapore-based firm.

The war of words between the two national parties erupted two days after French security expert Elliot Alderson pointed out that the NaMo App, used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office to interact with citizens, was sharing users' profile data with third-party domains without the users' consent.

Congress was on Monday left embarrassed with Alderson alleging that the Congress's official Android app lacked the latest security safety certificate and its data could potentially end up being illegally accessed.

"When you apply for membership in the official @INCIndia #android #app, your personal data are send encoded through a HTTP request to http://membership.inc.in. .. the personal data are encoding with base 64. This is not encryption! Decode this data is very easy as shown in the example. The IP address of http://membership.inc.in is 52.77.237.47. This server is located in Singapore. As you are an #Indian political party, having your server in #India is probably a good idea," Alderson said in series of tweets.

As the issue escalated, the BJP said the Congress had taken down its app called 'With INC' after it emerged that the app's server was based in Singapore. The Congress, on its part, said that the app was "dysfunctional" and all members were added through the party's official website.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi is technologically illiterate. He does not know that data analysis is not equivalent to spying. This new age is the age of information which Rahul ji will not understand: Sambit Patra, BJP pic.twitter.com/LgWKwb5XdI

— ANI (@ANI) March 26, 2018

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