Automated calls seeking voting choices irk citizens

• Fazl-ul-Rahman, a voter, received a call seeking to know who he would vote for. The caller spoke in Hindi. He was asked to pick one from the parties and asked to press 1 for BRS, 2 for Congress, 3 for BJP, 4 for AIMIM, 5 for BSP, 6 for TDP and 7 for repeating again
• After I pressed the option (disclosed), the auto caller said ‘danyawad’ (thank you). The call was disconnected,” he added
• Concerns are valid, experts say, because purported telephonic surveys that fail to meet basic standards may hurt voter privacy

Hyderabad: Ahead of the State Assembly elections, citizens are being flooded with automated calls from unknown landline numbers; several have complained about getting unwanted phone calls seeking to know their voting preferences or political inclinations, raising concerns over voter privacy.

For the last few days the citizens have been receiving calls from to reveal their electoral choice by providing them the choice of parties, including Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Telugu Desam, which are in the poll fray. The polling is on November 30.

A considerable number of people have objected to the phone calls. They term them as an infringement of their right to keep privacy of vote. The calls have left many questioning whether it is legal for auto-callers to ask which party they are going to vote for. Voters say why officials concerned are not monitoring and initiating action against people conducting such surveys.

Fazl-ul-Rahman, a voter, received an automated call seeking to know who he would vote for. The automated caller spoke in Hindi. He was asked to pick one from the parties and asked to press 1 for BRS, 2 for the Congress, 3 for BJP, 4 for AIMIM, 5 for BSP, 6 for TDP and 7 for repeating again.

“After I pressed the option (disclosed), the auto caller said ‘danyawad’ (thank you). The call was disconnected,” he added.

He was anxious that such calls cause apprehension about the possible misuse of the data that is being collected. Truecaller, a mobile app that helps identify unlisted callers, show the numbers as ‘election spam’.

Similarly, unlike Rahman, Divya Khatri received an automated call seeking to know who she would vote for. She was asked to pick one from the option of six parties. However, she disconnected the call, as the Truecaller showed spam.

Citizens have been receiving automated calls seeking their responses and voting preferences for parties. It is unclear whether voters outside the city receive such calls.

K Venkatesh of the Old City said he has been receiving such calls since the last two days. “I am receiving two-three such calls a day. I am asked which party I support in the upcoming election.” He added “when I disconnected I received a call again after a few hours and randomly I chose an option from the given list.”

Such concerns are valid, experts say, because purported telephonic surveys that fail to meet basic surveying standards may hurt voter privacy. Asif Hussain Sohail said worst is that the data is collected and could potentially be misused. “Calling on phone, the digital data will be automatically connected to many other details like age, gender, religion, income; these can be misused. The phone number is linked with an Aadhar card, bank account, PAN card and also a voter ID, and this can also be a cybercrime. ”He said a majority of these surveys are not authentic.