Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images Medical workers wearing protective suits are seen outside a special isolation ward of a Hospital in Kochi, Kerala, March 19, 2020.

Kerala government said that data on persons under Covid-19 surveillance will not be uploaded on the website of US-based company Sprinklr after the state Opposition alleged breach of citizens’ privacy.

The state’s IT department is using a mobile application developed by Sprinklr which allows health workers to record details of the citizens under surveillance for symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala had last week alleged that the government had entered into the data-handling contract with Sprinklr without due procedures, thereby risking the privacy of the people under quarantine.

The IT department’s statement on Monday said that the data will be fully owned by the Kerala government and will be moved onto the government’s servers after expanding capacity.

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What is Sprinklr?

Sprinklr is a tech company that calls itself the “world’s leading Citizen & Customer Experience Management (CXM) platform”.

It was started in 2010 by Ragy Thomas, who hails from Mavelikkara in Kerala.

The tool provided by Sprinklr will be used to identify Covid-19 hotspots in the state and to help local bodies take preventive measures to stop the spread of the disease, the Kerala IT department’s statement said.

The IT department described the service provided by the company as follows: “The data for COVID-19 war room is collected through Facebook, Twitter, email, WhatsApp etc. Help is made available to the needy by analysing these data fast. We had faced similar troubles during the floods also. We accepted the free service of Sprinklr, owned by Keralite entrepreneur Ragy Thomas, as we found it the best tool for the service we need. The software tool provided by Sprinklr is a software as a service (SaaS) application. It’s a ready-to-use software. It just has to be customised as per our needs. The company is responsible for its maintenance and update.”

The company told Manorama that it had complied with Indian laws on data privacy while entering into a contract with the Kerala government.

It also said that it did not own or commercialise client data.