Kerala HC stays US firm from analysing Covid-19 data

The Kerala high court on Friday restrained a US-based IT firm from analysing or processing the data related to COVID-19 patients and directed it to retransfer to the state government any data it has obtained. 

However, the court permitted the state government to utilise the services of the firm Sprinklr for processing data, subject to stringent conditions.  

In an interim order on a plea seeking to quash the state government's contract with  Sprinklr, a division bench, comprising Justices Devan Ramachandran and T R Ravi, also directed the state government to anonymise all data of COVID-19 patients collected by it and allow the IT firm to access data only after completing the anonymisation process.

Restraining Sprinklr from any act of breaching the confidentiality of data provided by the Kerala government, the court directed it not to deal with the data directly or indirectly in conflict with the deal signed between the state government and the IT firm.

The court also restrained Sprinklr from using the name or logo of the state government for its promotional purposes.

It also directed the state government to take informed consent from individuals before allowing a third party foreign company to process their data.

Earlier, the Kerala government had filed a statement in the high court, rejecting charges of illegality in its IT contract with the firm for processing data related to COVID-19 patients and contended that the initiation of penal action for breach would fall within the ambit of Indian IT Act.

The Centre had also filed a preliminary statement in connection with the case, saying sharing of sensitive data, especially of health related information of a large number of people, is to be resorted to in a very careful manner.

In his plea, petitioner Balu Gopalakrishnan had said the only concern is whether the data stored in the web server of company is safe and whether it can be used by the company for monetary gains.