New Delhi: Nearly four months after it asked the central government to probe a data leak pertaining to online grocery company Big Basket in a tweet, Twitter on Wednesday blocked Free Software Movement of India (FSMI)’s account for ‘posting private information’.
FSMI is a national coalition of various regional and sectoral free software movements operating in India.
On December 12, 2020, FSMI tagged CERT—the nodal agency for cyber security threats—asking why the government has not yet acknowledged a complaint filed against Big Basket that was sent in November.
It also linked a letter sent to CERT on the matter.
Now, the social media platform blocked FSMI’s account and asked the organization to delete the four-month-old tweet saying that it is a violation for posting private information.
“There is no private information in this tweet and we oppose your action of locking our account and suppressing the tweet without informing us of what private information has exactly been shared. We henceforth want our account to be unlocked immediately and the tweet be made public,” Kiran Chandra, FSMI’s general secretary told The Wire.
A cyber security firm called Cyble in November claimed that personal information of as many as 20 million users on the e-commerce site such as full names, email IDs, password hashes (potentially hashed OTPs), pin, contact numbers (mobile and phone), full addresses, date of birth, location, and IP addresses of where users have logged in from have been put up for sale on the dark web for $40,000.
Responding to the claim, Big Basket said that it was checking the authenticity and extent of security breach and ways to contain it.