A petition has been filed in the Kerala High Court alleging that the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) accessed personal information of government employees, including their mobile numbers and email IDs, from the official e-government portal for a mass messaging campaign to highlight the achievements of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.
The petition was filed by an official of the state government’s public administration department along with an associate professor at KTM College in Malappuram.
The chief marketing officer allegedly violated all data protection norms by collecting data from the Kerala Service Payroll Administrative Repository (SPARK) portal and other similar government portals and using it to send bulk messages via WhatsApp as part of an election campaign. The messages were reportedly sent to mobile numbers of government employees and beneficiaries of various state government and pension schemes.
“…the entire data has been transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office through the Kerala IT Mission, another body under the control of the government to compile it on behalf of the Chief Minister who is a representative of the political party facing the next elections scheduled in March-April 2026…The messages are being widely circulated in the personal WhatsApp accounts of government employees and other citizens, with the aim of election campaign in order to influence public opinion before the polls.”
The petitioners claimed that the action to access and use the data violated the right to privacy protected under Article 21 of the Constitution and the provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. They asked the court to restrict the Prime Minister’s Office in accessing the data and compensate them financially.
The opposition alleged that the state government misused the government portal to conduct the elections. “There are rulings by the Supreme Court and other courts against data theft. Personal information should not be disclosed to anyone without their permission. It appears that the social media wing of the Prime Minister’s Office stole data from the SPARK portal,” Leader of Opposition V D Sathisan said.
He asked the police to register a case and open an investigation. He also said that the opposition would legally challenge the alleged access to personal data of government employees.
It is not clear whether the present petition filed in the HC was on behalf of the opposition.
