Srikakulam & Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh) : An Android cellphone, a fingerprint reader, a water bottle and a pocket book in his bag, Nelapatla Krishnam Rao set out on his every day rounds of Srikakulam city, going door to door. 

At each house, he famous in his e-book and on his cellphone solutions that locals gave to his questions—age, gender, faith, caste, annual earnings, schooling, asset possession. Then, he took a photograph with the cellphone and picked up fingerprints of each grownup within the family. 

Alongside the biometric knowledge and the data he collected, he fed within the GPS coordinates of the condo or home earlier than importing the fabric to the E-Pragati portal of the Andhra Pradesh state authorities. 

When he began visiting households in 2019, suspicious residents would interrupt his data-gathering with their questions, he stated. “Now they’re used to it,” Rao, 22, instructed  Article 14. “They don’t thoughts sharing their particulars.”

Rao is one among 400  ‘grama volunteers’ or village volunteers employed by the Andhra Pradesh state authorities within the coastal district of Srikakulam, 500 km north-east of the state’s capital metropolis Amaravathi. Grama volunteers are actually current in every  village in every of the state’s 26 districts. 

“Jagan Anna kosam seva chestam,” stated Rao. “We’ll assist brother Jagan obtain his aim.” 

Since 2014, the federal government of Andhra Pradesh, led first by the Telugu Desam Social gathering’s N Chandrababu Naidu and since 2019 by Jagan Mohan Reddy of the   Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Social gathering (YSRCP), has collected exhaustive  details about residents. 

This was initially completed by way of a inhabitants enumeration train when the state was bifurcated to carve out the brand new state of Telangana. Each states have since emerged as amongst India’s most surveilled states (right here, right here and right here). 

Each states then launched surveys to seize residents’ knowledge for better-informed coverage design and evaluation of presidency schemes’ efficacy. In Telangana, this was the Samagra Kutumba Survey (intensive family survey) whereas Andhra Pradesh authorities launched the Praja Sadhikara Survey, or Good Pulse Survey (SPS), in 2016, searching for to gather socio-economic knowledge of each family straight in digital kind, duly validated on-line by volunteer-surveyors. 

The SPS, aiming to attain what the state authorities believes might be India’s first ‘Actual Time Governance Society’ (RTGS), envisions a digitised administration wherein, finally, each beneficiary of each authorities subsidy or scheme, and each voter identification quantity, is linked with an Aadhaar quantity. 

The RTGS dashboard is designed to be a mechanism for knowledge analytics that can enhance service supply of presidency schemes and assist course right welfare programmes. 

Nonetheless, consultants feared that the information assortment results in a 360-degree profiling of residents.

“Any knowledge assortment process that’s happening on this nation has the potential to be dangerous as a result of there isn’t any knowledge safety legislation in place,” Anushka Jain, a coverage counsel with the Web Freedom Basis, instructed Article 14.

Since its inception, the IFF has been advocating a knowledge safety legislation in India.

Jain stated accumulating knowledge from residents may contribute to constructing a 360-degree profile of each particular person, “which has a chilling impact on the liberty of speech and expression on this nation as there isn’t any transparency between the folks and their authorities”.

The July 2018 report of a committee of consultants underneath the chairmanship of Justice B N Srikrishna titled ‘A Free And Honest Digital Economic system: Defending Privateness, Empowering Indians’ pointed to the necessity to create a knowledge safety framework that protects residents’ privateness “from state and non-state actors”.   

Consultants stated that the built-in data of beneficiaries of a number of schemes and subsidy programmes, together with delicate knowledge similar to asset possession, earnings particulars and different Aadhaar-linked data, could also be lacking the knowledgeable consent of residents who are inclined to half with their knowledge when sought by a authorities worker. 

In Andhra Pradesh, 400-500 grama volunteers in each district, every paid a month-to-month wage of Rs 5,000 monthly, acquire this data in a seamless drive. 

Ajay Jain, principal secretary of the Andhra Pradesh authorities’s division of gram volunteers/ ward volunteers and village secretaries/ward secretariats, instructed Article 14 that the  authorities’s goal in accumulating the information was to ensure each citizen within the state will get entry to sources, and that the grama volunteers’ work aimed to  be sure each accessible subsidy reaches each house by way of a door-to-door effort. 

“Misuse does occur on a person stage, it will possibly occur in any system,” Jain stated, “however after we determine such folks, we instantly take motion in opposition to them and take away them immediately.” 

Leaks Of Aadhaar Numbers, Profiling Of Residents

For the reason that knowledge assortment began, a sequence of knowledge leaks has positioned delicate data belonging to residents vulnerable to misuse.

On 22 December 2021, cyber-security researcher Sai Sravan Prabhala contacted the Delhi-based Web Freedom Basis relating to a vulnerability within the Andhra Pradesh Directorate of Authorities Examination web site. 

The IFF and Prabhala collectively found that the web site allowed any particular person to entry and edit delicate private knowledge of minors, together with caste, location, spiritual affiliation and incapacity standing. Their cellphone quantity and identification marks as per college information may be edited on the web site. 

The IFF drafted a illustration urging the state authorities to behave in opposition to such vulnerabilities and to implement insurance policies for public reporting of knowledge breaches. 

In April 2018, the Aadhaar card particulars of about 134,000 Andhra Pradesh residents  have been discovered to be accessible on the state’s housing company web site, together with  faith, caste and financial institution particulars. This was among the many first incidents of a knowledge leak from the state authorities. 

In August 2018, round 20 million Aadhaar card holders’ knowledge was leaked. Of those, greater than 1 million Aadhaar numbers together with financial institution particulars have been seen on the Nationwide Rural Employment Assure Act (NREGA ) web site.

Impartial researcher and whistleblower Srinivas Kodali instructed Article 14,  “What you might be witnessing in Andhra Pradesh is the top of how a digitised authorities will appear like in an offline world. That is how it will be if Aadhar is linked to every thing.”

He stated Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been at all times experimental grounds for brand spanking new types of governance. 

In response to Kodali, the AP authorities’s knowledge is saved in knowledge hubs which, in keeping with the federal government’s submissions to the Supreme Court docket in 2015, now not exist. “Apart from the identify, nothing has modified,” Kodali stated. “The very mechanism continues.” 

In 2018, Naidu inaugurated the Andhra Pradesh Cyber Safety Operation Centre (APCSOC), however knowledge leaks continued. 

In the meantime, the state authorities used Aadhaar knowledge to construct profiles of a housing scheme’s beneficiaries. On 12 July 2019, the Andhra Pradesh authorities launched the YSR housing scheme to supply housing to low-income group households. The federal government’s anticipated expenditure for development of those homes was  Rs 50,490 crore. 

Potential beneficiaries must fill on-line kinds or present to the grama volunteers data and paperwork together with copies of their ration playing cards, Aadhaar playing cards, financial institution accounts, financial institution passbooks, caste certificates, proof of domicile and cellular numbers.    

On the time, Kodali instructed journalists that this data may very well be misused by political events for voter profiling.

In one other occasion, in 2019, the Telangana police filed an FIR in opposition to an data expertise firm for allegedly illegally accumulating and possessing Aadhaar knowledge of almost 8 crore residents in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, reportedly for profiling of voters.

A subsequent evaluation by Telangana State Forensic Science Laboratory (TSFSL) confirmed that the corporate was in possession of a whopping 7,82,21,397 Aadhaar numbers in a selected structured format.

The YSRCP alleged that this firm was utilizing the data for growth of the then ruling Telugu Desam Social gathering’s cellular utility, Seva Mitra.

‘Grama Volunteers Are YSRCP Scamsters’

In 2019, because of extra rainfall and floods within the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, as hundreds of acres of crop land turned unproductive, chief minister Reddy ordered reduction measures. About 1,000 farmers in Kurnool have been listed as having misplaced their crop, primarily based on data collected from grama volunteers. 

A listing with their particulars was despatched to officers at Rythu Bharosa Kendram, a authorities centre that provides seedlings, fertilisers and seeds underneath the YSR Rythu Bharosa Scheme.

The YSRCP  authorities sanctioned ex gratia of Rs 1.19 crore. There have been 130 affected farmers from Bheemunipadu village who acquired Rs 13,70,400 in complete.

Keshava Kumar of Bheemunipadu was amongst them. “My identify was on the listing however I’ve not acquired any compensation from the federal government until date,” Kumar instructed Article 14.

“This isn’t the primary time.” He stated grama volunteers have been recognized to have put pretend names on such lists to be able to purloin funds. “They’re YSRCP scamsters.”

Kumar additionally accused an area grama volunteer of placing names of ineligible farmers on the listing. He and fellow farmers had additionally staged a protest in opposition to officers on the Rythu Bharosa Kendram in June 2020.

Neither was motion taken in opposition to the grama volunteer nor have been affected farmers searching for compensation added to the listing, he stated. The volunteer, a resident of the identical village, refused to talk to Article 14 concerning the allegation.

In June 2022, Ambati Rambabu, a YSRCP legislator from Sattenapalli constituency and likewise Andhra Pradesh’s irrigation minister, stirred up a controversy by showing to concede that the volunteers had been appointed primarily based on suggestions of the occasion leaders. 

“These volunteers working in opposition to the pursuits of the occasion might be faraway from service and new volunteers might be appointed” Rambabu stated.

YSRCP Member of Parliament Vijay Sai Reddy additionally made a controversial assertion on the appointment of grama volunteers. He stated jobs as volunteers had been given solely to YSRCP occasion activists who had labored laborious in the course of the election.  

Principal secretary Ajay Jain stated out of two.65 lakh grama volunteers, instances of complaints of misuse of grama volunteers’ powers numbered within the lots of.  “No matter whether or not they’re motivated complaints, as soon as confirmed responsible, we take fast motion,” he stated.

Jain additionally clarified that the grama volunteers have been appointed by a separate mandal income workplace (MRO)  as per set tips and that the volunteers should not related to any political occasion. 

“There are set tips for each scheme,” stated Jain, “So it will be unsuitable to say that the grama volunteers have discretionary powers to determine who qualifies as beneficiaries.” 

The ward secretariats present oversight to this work, he stated.

How A Grama Volunteer Works 

Anybody with a category 10 certificates is eligible to use for a job as a grama volunteer. candidates fill out a web-based kind and attend an interview earlier than they’re recruited. 

Rao, a fourth yr engineering pupil, was born and introduced up within the city of Srikakulam. He enrolled as a grama volunteer in 2019 after seeing an commercial for the job on a Telugu information channel. 

“I utilized with an intention to assist folks in my city cooperate with Jagan brother’s imaginative and prescient,” Rao instructed Article 14. 

4 days every week, volunteers are anticipated to go door to door and acquire data. Each month, the federal government launches the data assortment drive for a brand new scheme, and data for every scheme is collected individually. 

In September 2022 he collected data for a brand new subsidy scheme that concerned paying unemployed ladies above the age of 55 a sure sum to assist them begin small-scale companies. Rao visited not less than 10 homes a day, asking ladies their age, earnings, employment, caste, household earnings and different particulars.  

The volunteers feed residents’ knowledge into 50-odd separate functions, one for every scheme or subsidy of the federal government. This data is considered on the collectorates, the place eligible beneficiaries for every scheme or subsidy are finalised.  

On the finish of the day, he deposited the data on the district sachivalayam  (secretariat) from the place the information can be compiled and despatched to the district collector’s workplace.

Each two weeks, after the state authorities critiques particulars offered by the grama volunteers, a listing of eligible candidates is shipped again to the sachivalayam,  the place work begins to distribute the cash to eligible candidates as analysed from the information collected. 

Rao stated he was not affiliated with the YSRCP. “I’m a devoted volunteer doing my job,” he stated. “I achieve no further perks from the ruling occasion, nor am I a member.”

‘Began By Naidu, Worse Beneath Jagan’

Kodali instructed Article 14 that knowledge assortment practices missing any knowledge safety framework, having begun in the course of the chief ministership of Chandrababu Naidu, continued underneath the brand new regime. “… somewhat it has change into worse,” Kodali stated. 

“Grama volunteers maintain immense energy to determine who will get what,” he added. “That signifies how flawed the system is.” 

Kodali identified that Andhra Pradesh was the one state that conducts a door-to-door survey for the data, whereas all data in Telangana is  collected on the authorities’s MeeSeva Kendras.

Grama volunteers who go door to door are typically panchayat-level academics from the identical village, he stated, including that the potential for political occasion leaders controlling the volunteers couldn’t be dominated out.

A number of instances of allegations in opposition to the volunteer have been reported. 

In September 2021, a girl within the Pattegada panchayat of Chittoor district observed that cash was being transferred out of her checking account. The financial institution officers finally discovered {that a} grama volunteer had reportedly robbed from her and from others in the identical village, after gaining details about their accounts by way of his door-to-door knowledge gathering train.  

In June 2022, a farmer from Subhani Nagar in East Godavari district alleged {that a} grama volunteer stole Rs 68,000 from him underneath the Rythu Bharosa Scheme which the federal government had discovered him eligible for. 

A message on his cellular quantity from the federal government stated the cash had been transferred to him. He by no means received it.

(Vidheesha Kuntamalla is a contract journalist primarily based in Hyderabad. She covers gender, politics and social justice.)