Personal data up for sale for just 5 paise

Personal data up for sale for just 5 paise

Chandrima.Banerjee@timesgroup.com

02.07.2020

Where you live, how much you make, which mail ID you use more often — unknown to you, your personal information is being mined from companies and apps by data brokers. And it’s feeding a growing Covid data industry, which can pass on your health data to advertisers, insurance companies and hospitals.

“It’s a very disturbing trend. Covid has come at a time of increased digital adoption… But premised on the vulnerability of people, data brokers have gathered large amounts of personal data, including healthcare data,” Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, told TOI.

It’s all legal though. The process starts with a basic database of personal details. When TOI approached a primary data broker, five samples were shared with data about 3,855 individuals. Another data broker came back with a sample sheet of 690. And the full database? “1 lakh data cost you Rs 5k,” the broker wrote back. About 5p per person. But how much of it is legit? TOI called up some of the numbers on the sample lists. The records matched. “Even my residence address is correct,” said one of them, who was alarmed his personal information was up for sale. These datasets, privacy experts said, often come from employees in sectors that have large customer databases — like credit, banking, car dealerships or hospitals — and are largely accurate.

The next step is to track location and purchases. That can be done with SDKs, software development kits, which are small tools that app developers can add to cover a function. But location SDKs can, and are sometimes required to, relay information without adding functionality. VenPath, for instance, pays app developers to use its SDKs in exchange for user data. “We love some location data… The best way to collect it is every minute in the foreground and every 5 minutes in the background… The SDK grabs everything it needs,” VenPath says in its permissions section. For purchase history, there is the Mobile Advertiser ID, assigned to every device by operating systems. It creates a buyer profile by tracking purchases, searches and movement. So if someone stops at a pharmacy and later searches for “Covid symptoms”, data gatherers know where things are headed before their doctor does.

But the data from multiple points needs to be put together and processed. This is where Covid data brokers come in. One Covid data broker, for instance, offers something called a “Covid Graph” and says it can “acquire” the device ID of a person who tests positive (without saying how it will know who tested positive) and track them. Another offers to analyse the impact of Covid-19 on spending patterns. “Medical data can lead to a form of profiling that can be very invasive. It can be commercially utilised without their consent by insurance companies, for instance, which opaquely price premiums, or by hospitals,” Gupta said. “One cannot estimate the amount of money which is flowing through it.”

Covid data brokers are passing on health data to advertisers, insurance companies & hospitals

DGHS: Can use plasma therapy in moderate cases

DGHS: Can use plasma therapy in moderate cases

New Delhi:02.07.2020

Convalescent plasma can be considered for treatment of moderate Covid patients who are not improving (oxygen requirement is progressively increasing) despite use of steroids, the directorate general of health services (DGHS) said on Wednesday, clearing the air on use of convalescent plasma therapy, reports Sushmi Dey.

Convalescent plasma therapy is allowed as an investigational therapy for use in Covid-19 patients. The clinical management protocol prescribed by the government recommends convalescent plasma by plasmapheresis as in Covid-19 patients with a few safeguards.

According to the DGHS, under the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, the special prerequisites while considering convalescent plasma include ABO compatibility and cross-matching of the donor plasma. Recipient should also be closely monitored for several hours post transfusion for any transfusion-related adverse events. “Use should be avoided in patients with IgA deficiency or immunoglobulin allergy,” it said.

The recommended dose for the therapy is variable ranging from 4 to 13 ml/kg (usually 200 ml single dose given slowly over not less than 2 hours).

The health ministry had recently revised blood transfusion guidelines to include collection of convalescent plasma under the clinical trials protocol from people who have recovered from Covid-19 infection.

The Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) is also working to create a database of potential convalescent plasma donors for hospitals treating Covid-19 patients.

Full report on www.toi.in

HC tears into T’gana govt over failed Covid strategy

HC tears into T’gana govt over failed Covid strategy

‘State Resorting To Suppression Of Information’

SagarKumar.Mutha@timesgroup.com

Hyderabad:02.07.2020

The Telangana high court said on Wednesday that the state government had not only failed to control the spread of the Covid-19 virus but also kept people in the dark about its spread and did not implement important orders of the court.

A bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy told advocate general B S Prasad on the one hand the chief secretary says the government is following ICMR guidelines on testing and on the other the director of public health stops testing. “The ICMR never said testing should be stopped,” the chief justice said.

The bench told chief secretary Somesh Kumar and other officials to either implement its orders by July 17 or appear before it on July 20. The judges were particularly upset about their orders about giving detailed media bulletins not being followed.

Hearing a bunch of PILs filed by Prof PL Visweswara Rao of Telangana Jana Samithi and others, the bench said public health director Dr G Srinivas misled the court about tests and dissemination of information to the people.

The judges directed the state to submit detailed information on tests conducted in the state along with tests done on asymptomatic and symptomatic people, and whether primary contacts of positive patients were being tested as per ICMR guidelines.

The judges found fault with the authorities for failing to conduct 50,000 tests in 10 days, as was promised, and for unilaterally stopping them for a few days on the grounds that they were unable to test the large number of samples. “You cannot stop things like this. This is contrary to ICMR guidelines,” the bench said.

“Instead of increasing tests, you are stopping the conduct of tests, the bench said, rejecting a report filed by the public health director. “Next time, let this director file a sworn affidavit along with his reports so that we can fix responsibility on such officials if they openly resort to perjury,” the bench added.

“Contrary to popular perception, young people in the 26-to-35 age group are most affected by the coronavirus in Telangana,” the bench said. “Instead of letting people know such information so that the younger lot will come out of the misconception that only old people have to be careful, the state is resorting to suppression of such information. None of the media bulletins carry details of age, gender, area, etc. though we gave an order on June 18 itself asking officials to reveal information to people,” the bench said.

“There is no containment policy. All containment zones were closed. There is total confusion as to the areas that were most affected by the virus. Though we have directed the state, its health officials to regularly publish details of affected people ward-wise, the authorities ignored our direction,” the bench said.

STRICT CHECKS: Health workers screen a policeman in

Visa process starts for 11 countries

Visa process starts for 11 countries

New Delhi: 02.07.2020

Amid the ongoing pandemic, foreign missions in India have gradually started resuming visa application processes. VFS Global on Wednesday said this process has restarted for specific categories for the UK, Ireland, South Korea, Turkey, UAE, Italy, Norway, Belarus, Denmark, Dominican Republic and Portugal in some cities, with the approval of respective embassies in India.

It is yet to announce visa resumption dates for big destinations like the US and Canada. VFS serves 51 client governments in India and had handled 60 lakh visa applications here in calendar year 2019.

The UK will begin accepting applications for all visa categories in 11 cities beginning July 6 and Ireland will do so only for student and long-stay categories for now. Turkey, Belarus and UAE (DVPC-eVisas for Emirates passengers only for travel from July 7) have started accepting applications for all categories in Delhi and online (for UAE). Italy, Denmark, Norway and Portugal will, for now, take only for some categories (see box) in Delhi alone. TNN

Unpaid corpn teachers say funds used to pay safai staff

Unpaid corpn teachers say funds used to pay safai staff

Paras.Singh@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  02.07.2020

More than 9,000 municipal teachers and pensioners of North Delhi Municipal Corporation continue to remain unpaid for the past three months. While a section of teachers deployed on Covid duties received a month’s salary, they were left penniless again after using the money to repay loans and pending bills.

The teachers’ union also alleged that the money meant for them was diverted to pay sanitation workers. Kuldeep Khatri, who heads Shikshak Nyaya Manch Nagar Nigam, said, “Our salary is pending from March to June. Around 5,400 teachers who were on Covid duty were paid only for March, but there was favouritism during disbursement. Another Rs 49 crore was released by Delhi government, but it was used to pay sanitation workers.”

Ramniwas Solanki, general secretary of Nagar Nigam Shikshak Sangh, said, “Teachers haven’t been able to pay loans, house rent and even school fees of children. They are being forced to live a life of desperation and economic insecurity. The problem of delayed salary goes back to the faulty trifurcation of the municipal corporation. In 2014, the salary was delayed by a month. But now the dues are of four months.”

“Our job is to teach, but we are being used to distribute rations, carry out surveys and deployed in containment zones. Are we not human? We are being told to find Covid patients without being paid. More than 200 teachers have been infected with the virus on duty, but no one cares about us,” Khatri said.

Jai Prakash, north corporation mayor, said, “It will be wrong to say that only the corporation and not Delhi government is to blame. We were supposed to get Rs 556 crore in the first quarter of the year, but didn’t. Delhi high court also blasted the government. The court said we will be blamed if the teachers don’t get paid. The teachers are being used by Delhi government to distribute rations and fight the virus, so it should help us.”

“We have extended the deadline for paying property tax so that our revenue stream increases and we can pay the employees. The government should help in this extraordinary situation as we are providing it manpower,” added Prakash.

4 9  CRORE RUPEES RELEASED BY DELHI GOVT

Sisodia orders financial audit of women’s college

Sisodia orders financial audit of women’s college

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:  02.07.2020

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has ordered financial auditing of Delhi University’s Bhagini Nivedita College, stating that the government has received several complaints against it.

In an order to the secretary of higher education, Sisodia wrote that he had “received multiple complaints regarding financial irregularities in Bhagini Nivedita College, one of the colleges fully funded by the government of NCT of Delhi”.

Sisodia, who is also the state education minister, said the complaints had come from different stakeholders such as students, parents and teachers. They “allege financial irregularities in tendering processes, hiring of a car for the principal, buying of unnecessary items not needed in an educational institution, etc,” he added.

The matter is serious and the directorate of higher education should immediately get the college accounts of last two years audited, “preferably by a CAG-empanelled auditor”, Sisodia said. A compliance report will have to be submitted in 15 days. “Strongest action must be taken against officials concerned if any irregularities are found in the audit,” he said.

Despite repeated attempts, Charu Sharma, the principal of the women’s college didn’t comment. A senior DU official, however, claimed the auditing had been announced to force the college to accept the government’s governing body (GB) nominee. “The current acting principal has been around for only a year. The government should have done auditing earlier if they had proof of financial irregularities from the past two years,” the official said.

A Delhi government official said financial irregularities in the college were well known and the government was acting on complaints. “This is not related to the GB formation. But it is likely that the college did not allow its formation as they were worried GB would ask for the accounts. That would have been problematic for the college authorities,” he said.

A DU OFFICIAL SAYS

The government should have done the auditing earlier if they have proof of financial irregularities for the past two years

Rush at SDM offices for EWS certificates

Rush at SDM offices for EWS certificates

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: 02.07.2020

As registration for admissions to Delhi University is going to end in three days, students and parents have started thronging the sub-divisional magistrate’s offices in the city to get economically weaker section (EWS) category certificates.

Flouting social distancing norms, parents and students gathered in large numbers at the SDM’s office in Dwarka on Wednesday.

An applicant, Harshit Gupta later told TOI, “While OBC certificates are procured online, there is no such provision for EWS category students. There is a long process that we need to complete at the SDM office and hence, there was crowding.”

The EWS reservation was introduced in the university last year and the number of seats under the category has now increased by 10%.

The university has said that students belonging to the EWS category can submit the application receipt. However, students are even finding it difficult to submit the application in many cases.

Amisha Nanda, a DU student who is helping the aspirants with registrations, said, “We have been receiving a lot of queries from students related to certificates, including caste certificates. Some students are not being able to apply online also, which is adding to their stress and anxiety.”

A DU official, on condition of anonymity, said, “the rules for procuring EWS certificate are set by the government of India and DU cannot do much about them, except extending the dates of the registration period.” The admission branch has asked applicants not to panic as they still have over two weeks to upload the documents.

Shobha Bagai, dean (admissions), said: “We had also put up a video on our website explaining this to applicants and they shouldn’t be anxious. The university has also assured applicants that they can apply online for the certificate and upload that application receipt on the DU admission portal while registering. They can update the form with the certificate later.”

1 0  % QUOTA FOR EWS STUDENTS IN DELHI UNIVERSITY