Calling attention to data breach at e-grocery store is the alleged reason

Calling attention to data breach at e-grocery store is the alleged reason

Free Software Movement of India (FSMI)’s Twitter handle was locked over a tweet posted in December last year which sought Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)’s intervention to investigate a data breach reported at online grocery delivery service, Big Basket.

FSMI describes itself as a coalition of regional and sectoral free software movements with an aim to work towards e-literacy and bridging the digital divide based on free software. It is also working towards a policy change favouring free software.

According to FSMI general secretary Y. Kiran Chandra, FSMI, it was in November that the organisation had written to CERT-In, the nodal agency that responds to computer security incidents. Citing newspaper reports of the data breach, FSMI requested CERT-In to investigate the incident. However, when they did not receive a reply, a copy of the letter was tweeted around a month later. It is this tweet which led to Twitter locking the FSMI handle.

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On March 30, reacting to locking of the account, Mr Chandra tweeted, “Twitter has locked out @fsmi_in’s account for publishing our letter to grievance officer @IndianCERT about data breach incident involving bigbasket. We did not publish any personal information and demand immediate restoration of the account. @fsmi_in @TwitterIndia (sic).”

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr Chandra maintained that no personal data was tweeted. “There is no private information in the tweet. Even after the appeal, Twitter hasn’t allowed access to the handle. We will gain access as soon as we delete the tweet. [But] We will not delete it as there is no private information in it. We have gone for an appeal. There is no response as yet. Twitter will have to come out clean and give the reason behind locking our account. People can still view the tweets in the account barring the one that Twitter has asked to delete,” he said.