Kerala HC questions CMO on accessing data of 5 lakh employees, directs immediate stop to WhatsApp outreach

Kochi (Kerala) [India], February 24 (ANI): The Kerala High Court issued a stern warning to the State Government and sought an immediate explanation regarding how the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) accessed the private contact details of nearly five lakh government employees, judicial officers, and scheme beneficiaries on Tuesday, February 24, 2026.
The Court's intervention follows a petition, which alleged that the CMO bypassed privacy laws to send unsolicited, personalised WhatsApp messages featuring the Chief Minister's photograph and highlighting achievements like the 10% DA hike as part of an election campaign for the upcoming May 2026 Legislative Assembly polls.
The Bench observed a clear "lack of privacy" in this outreach, specifically scrutinising the suspected unauthorised transfer of data from the SPARK (Service and Payroll Administrative Repository for Kerala) portal, a database strictly intended for salary and administrative purposes, via the Kerala State IT Mission to the CMO.
In today's hearing, the Court emphasized that using administrative data for political promotion could constitute a serious breach of the Right to Privacy under Article 21 and the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, subsequently instructing the government to clarify the legal authority behind this data processing and to halt further dissemination of such messages until the source of the data is legally verified. The court also directed the CMO office To Stop Spreading Messages ASAP.
On Monday, the Kerala Congress alleged that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan misused official SPARK databases to send election propaganda to government employees and the public, calling it a "massive breach of trust and individual privacy."
In a series of posts on social media platform X, the party accused Vijayan of turning governance into a "PR spectacle" and using public funds to build a "snooping" infrastructure.
"Kerala is witnessing state-sponsored data theft! CM @pinarayivijayan is caught red-handed using official SPARK databases to spam government employees and people with election propaganda. This is a massive breach of trust and individual privacy," reads the X post.
"Why is @AshwiniVaishnaw looking the other way? Is it because of the unholy CPM-BJP alliance we see in Kerala?. Pinarayi has clearly mastered the Modi playbook, turning governance into a PR spectacle and using public money for a "snooping" infrastructure," added in the X post.
Kerala Congress further cited the Kerala High Court's earlier quashing of a ₹20 crore data-harvesting survey, calling it a "colourable exercise of power" that violated Article 166(3) Rules of Business. The party said this misuse of official data amounts to an attack on citizens' Right to Privacy under Article 21, and demanded immediate legal action against the alleged surveillance. (ANI)