The Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday said that it will be unacceptable if privacy of Indian citizens have been violated under the US security programme that mined data from Web sites such as Google and Facebook.

The spokesman for the Ministry said the Government will be “concerned and surprised” about the possibility of data relating to private communications of Indians being harvested. “We feel that the Cyber Security dialogue coordinated by the National Security Councils on both sides is the appropriate forum to discuss such issues. We intend to seek information and details during consultations between interlocutors on both sides on this matter,” the spokesman said.  

The Guardian newspaper had recently acquired top secret documents about data mining used by the US National Security Agency which showed that India came in fifth with 6.3 billion pieces of information being collected from the country’s computer and data networks in one month alone.

The disclosure has also drawn political reaction. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) politbureau said in a statement “The recent exposure in the media of the US National  Security Agency (NSA) mining  Internet and telephone data for intelligence purposes violates the sovereignty of nations and the privacy of individuals who use such Internet services. It is significant that India is a major target of such intelligence gathering.”

“With the increase of internet's importance to global communications, the dangers of such control for other countries and the rights of its citizens are now clear.  India must immediately protest on such violation of its citizen's rights and violation of its sovereignty,” it added.

The CPI (M) said that India must also press for an immediate initiative to democratise Internet governance and ensure that the US intelligence agencies do not override the sovereignty of countries and the rights of individuals.

thomas.thomas@thehindu.co.in

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