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Anonymous Accuses Reliance Jio of Selling User Data Outside India

The group has alleged that Reliance Jio is selling user call data to targeted ad networks in the US and Singapore.

A member of a hactivist collective Anonymous declares ‘total war’ on Trump. (Photo Courtesy: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvCC2qONQFg">YouTube/Anonymous</a> )
A member of a hactivist collective Anonymous declares ‘total war’ on Trump. (Photo Courtesy: YouTube/Anonymous )

Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Jio could be violating privacy laws if recent claims by hacktivist group Anonymous are to be believed.

The group has alleged that Reliance Jio is selling user call data to targeted ad networks in the US and Singapore in return for money without informing users.

These allegations come after the ones from last year by the same group where it had stated that Jio chat app was sending across user location data to servers located in China.

However, Reliance Jio, in its response, had called the allegations false and said all Jio Chat data and associated servers are hosted physically in Reliance Jio data centres in India. “No data travels outside of India from Jio Chat servers,” it said.

Anonymous in June last year had accused Jio Chat instant messaging app rolled out by Reliance Jio, of violation of privacy of about 5,00,000 users in India – a number that has drastically increased after the launch of Reliance Jio’s commercial service.

The group has claimed that it tested apps from other operators too, but only found the Jio apps were sharing information with ad networks outside the country.

Anonymous in its blog on tumblr also shared steps for users to verify the hactivists’ claims.

(With inputs from Business Standard)