New Delhi: India’s “Aatmanirbhar” microblogging app Koo is gaining a lot of attention after several union ministers announced support for the app amid a face-off between Twitter and the Indian government. ALSO READ | Netizens Wonder If Twitter Will Be Banned In India After Union Minister Piyush Goyal Joined ‘Koo’; Here’s Why
French data security researcher, who shared several claims about the Aarogya Setu app the previous year, has come back with allegations against the Koo app.
“You asked so I did it. I spent 30 min on this new Koo app. The app is leaking of the personal data of his users: email, dob, name, marital status, gender, …” he wrote.
Responding to this, Co-Founder and CEO of Koo Aprameya Radhakrishna stated that “The data visible is something that the user has voluntarily shown on their profile of Koo. It cannot be termed a data leak. If you visit a user profile you can see it anyway”.
About leaking email address, he wrote “95% of Koo users login through their mobile phone number. Language communities of India do not use email to login and hence was not the priority of the company. Email login was introduced recently. Now that concerns have been raised it has already been blocked from view”.
The researcher who goes by the pseudonym Elliot Alderson (after actor Rami Malek’s character in popular America show Mr. Robot) called this justification a lie, drawing comparison between the screenshot of what appears to be the platform’s source code vs the public profile)
CEO Aprameya R’s response ahead to this is awaited.
Meanwhile, the co-founder has also addressed the claim of Koo being a China based platform by clarifying that “Latest funds for Bombinate Technologies is led by a truly Indian investor 3one4 capital. Shunwei (single digit shareholder) which had invested in our Vokal journey will be exiting fully”.
In another update about the app, a Twitter account claiming to be the official one was suspended after it was clarified that @KooIndia is the official handle of the platform on Twitter.
‘@KooAppOfficial’ was responding to Twitter users over their concerns about the app, and received mentions from other verified handles, creating further confusion. The account stands suspended now.
