Senior officials from the Election Commission today met cyber security experts to discuss Internet giant Google's proposal for a tie-up ahead of the Lok Sabha election. Google has proposed to provide the poll panel with voter facilitation services for the national polls, due by May.In a presentation on Monday before Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath, Election Commissioners HS Brahma and SNA Zaidi and other top officials, Google said it could provide its search engines free of cost to voters and also offered free online voter registration. It also proposes to make available vital details of voter identity card numbers and polling station location.

The proposed tie-up has sparked concerns by Indian cyber security experts, who claimed that there was a possibility that the data collected by Google could be used by the US' National Security Agency (NSA), which is facing allegations of worldwide cyber snooping in the light of revelations by one of its former contractors Edward Snowden.The deal, if signed, would mean handing over details of the entire database of 80 crore Indian voters to Google, which has raised questions on if it would violate the Public Records Act (1993). The Act prevents official records from being stored abroad.