Parliamentary panel gets 'unsatisfactory' responses on data privacy, security from Twitter officials

The panel questioned the officials about reports on former head of Twitter (security) Peiter Zatko's allegations that the microblogging site knowingly allowed the Indian government to place its "agents" on the company payroll, where they had "direct unsupervised access to the company's systems and user data."

A parliamentary standing committee on information and technology, chaired by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, questioned the top brass of Twitter on Friday over a whistle-blower's revelations about its India operations, and gave them a dressing-down as their replies on issues of data security and privacy were "not satisfactory", said sources in the know of the matter.

Top executives of Twitter, including senior director (public policy) Samiran Gupta and director (public policy) Shagufta Kamran, deposed before the parliamentary panel on Friday.

The panel questioned them about reports on former head of Twitter (security) Peiter Zatko's allegations that the microblogging site knowingly allowed the Indian government to place its "agents" on the company payroll where they had "directly unsupervised access to the company's systems and user data."

Twitter officials refuted Zatko's allegations and denied there was any data security breach in India, said sources in the panel.

The members also questioned the social media giant's officials if their data security policies are in sync with local policies and with the single global privacy policy.

I questioned officials from #Facebook, #Twitter, and #Google about the extent of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election in @senjudiciary pic.twitter.com/OiJFzWSZfe

The panel asked the officials how the microblogging site handles conflicts in national privacy policies of different countries, with the sources claiming the executives didn't give satisfactory replies.