The Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) has rejected senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala’s claim that the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government is misusing the official machinery to obtain personal data of citizens, including government employees and pensioners, for political purposes.
The CMO said the data collection spearheaded by the state’s IT mission was a precursor to the creation of a centralized notification center for government services. The aim of the center was to integrate data from different departments and speed up the provision of public services. For example, the government can notify a civil servant that it has cleared the arrears of the civil servant’s dependency allowance through a mobile phone notification. The Hub can inform citizens whose land or real estate tax transfers are overdue about payment deadlines and penalties for non-payment.
The CMO said that a highly secure State Data Center (SDC) managed by the IT Mission houses citizens’ data. The SDC had several firewalls and internal controls to ensure that official data did not fall into the hands of any non-government agency.
Without naming Mr. Chennithala, the CMO said the official letter “leaked” to the media by the former leader of the opposition was self-evident. A communique issued by Seeram Sambhasiva Rao, senior minister on special duties to the director-general of the IT mission, on the collection of personal data, including mobile numbers and domicile details of government personnel, dispelled Mr Chennithal’s allegation that the administrative exercise smacked of “nefarious purpose”.
The CMO said the opposition is laying a smokescreen of lies to derail a critical citizen support service.
Mr. Chennithala raised the specter of the government misusing the data of 77 million government employees, including pensioners, for political purposes, using mass mobile messaging as a means of mass communication for LDF propagandists. Calling the “CMO-sponsored data breach” a violation of the country’s data protection and privacy laws, he asked the Supreme Court to register a suo motu case against the government.
Mr. Chennithal’s allegation gained relevance in the backdrop of the Kerala High Court on Tuesday marking a prima facie breach of privacy in the alleged misuse of personal data of government employees, allegedly by the chief minister’s office, to send mass WhatsApp messages and emails highlighting the “achievements of LDF governance”.
The High Court’s observation came while considering a plea filed by a college teacher and an administrative assistant in the general administration department that the government had misused personal information, including mobile phone numbers and email addresses provided for official purposes, to send them promotional messages relating to the ten years of the LDF government ahead of the assembly elections.
The high court also questioned the government counsel about how the CMO accessed bulk personal data of government employees stored in government digital repositories and what firewalls the administration had put in place to keep that data out of private hands.
Published – 25 Feb 2026 19:51 IST
