New Delhi,
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi after allegations surfaced that data from his official app was being shared without users’ consent, a charge the BJP trashed.

Gandhi also accused the media of “burying” the story.

His attack on the PM was based on a report in which a French vigilante hacker has purportedly alleged that data was stolen from his official app — NaMo App — without the consent of the users.

“Hi! My name is Narendra Modi. I am India’s Prime Minister. When you sign up for my official App, I give all your data to my friends in American companies,” Gandhi said on Twitter. In the tweet, he also attached a story titled, “Data theft allegations reaches PM Modi’s doorstep, French vigilante hacker’s stunning revelation”.

The BJP reacted on Twitter, saying it did not expect “any better” from the Congress chief. It also said the data is used only for analytics using third party service, similar to Google Analytics.

Official sources also maintained the app does not ask for blanket permissions when it is launched. They said the app is unique in nature, which unlike most apps, gives access to users in ‘guest mode’ without even any permission or data. The permissions required are all “contextual and cause-specific”, they pointed out. “We also take this opportunity to encourage Rahul Gandhi to download NaMo App to keep himself apprised of the good things happening in India,” the BJP4India said in a tweet.

“Rahul Gandhi is no match for Narendra Modi. But seeing his fright about the Namo App, is very amusing. When his bots tried to trend #DeleteNamoApp day before yesterday, the popularity and downloads of Namo App only increased,” it said.