Bengaluru police have recently started receiving complaints about fraud calls, closer to the state elections.
Several voters in Bengaluru turn to social media platforms to state their grievances about fraudulent phone calls that collect voter data.
Rohini Mohan, an independent journalist on Twitter mentioned that she received a call, claiming to be from a media house and asked about her voter choices for the Karnataka Elections 2023. She received a call from the numbers – 72212454003 and 77712452503.
Similarly, Mohammed Zubair, co-founder Alt News also mentioned on Twitter that he received similar calls asking for information about his preferred party for the upcoming Karnataka state elections. Zubair also received calls from a similar number.
Anand Prasad, Spokesperson, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) said, “The Chilume trust has already collected voter data and leaked it to private companies for a cost. All the damage has been done. It is not a problem to give your opinion as a voter about the parties, but we should be very careful about sharing personal information like voter ID numbers.
Prakash DR, the president of Ulsoor’s Resident Welfare Association (RWA) in a WhatsApp message, warning his residents about the fraudulent phone calls said, “An illegal telephonic call is being received, please don’t respond. It is asking to which party you are casting your vote by pressurizing a corresponding number.” The number that called Prakash was 722124 52008.
During elections, several problems like this are bound to exist.
Ramya, an official from the Namma 112 helpline said, “Recently we have received a few complaints that voters are receiving calls from people who collect data about their personal voting preferences. For this, we have a masking option, where the receiver’s phone number will be hidden and the caller can’t access any data.”
Dr Tejaswini Gowda, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said, “Voters have enough awareness about these issues. They know that this kind of information should not be provided by the voters for their safety.”
While Professor MG Khan of Karnatak University Dharwad, Political Science Department said, “Usually, these calls are ignored, but it is still important to make people aware about not responding to these phone calls. Since it is a secret ballot, voters have the right to maintain the secrecy of their preferred party.”
According to news reports, in November 2022, Bengaluru police arrested three people including the HR and founder-director of the NGO Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Trust for allegedly collecting voter data.
The police also took a software developer under custody who allegedly created the ‘Digital Sameeksha’ app, in which the data was stored. The case was registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 406 (criminal breach of trust), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), and 468 (forgery).
