The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Telangana has officially confirmed allegations of voter data misuse by the state government—a story first reported by The Reporters’ Collective earlier this month.
The confirmation came in a September 23, 2025, letter from CEO C. Sudarshan Reddy to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters, with a copy shared with the Collective. It verifies that voter data, including names, photographs, and Electors' Photo ID Cards (EPIC), was accessed and used beyond its original purpose.
The issue traces back to 2015, when the ECI approved access for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments to link voter IDs with Aadhaar on state-managed servers. A Supreme Court order ended the linking that year, but the ECI did not require data deletion, allowing it to remain with the states.
By 2019, Telangana integrated this data into its Pensioner Life Certificate Service (PLCS), a facial recognition tool for verifying pension eligibility. Developed with Hyderabad-based Posidex Technologies, the system used EPIC data via API for demographic and photo comparisons, affecting 2.16 million voters. The data also fed into broader state applications like T-App, spanning departments such as Transport and Education.
Reddy's letter notes his office was unaware of this usage, which occurred from March 2019 to July 2021. The state government confirmed the access but did not address whether private firms like Posidex directly handled the data.
The revelations followed a complaint by privacy activist Srinivas Kodali in August 2025, supported by RTI documents exposing the integration. Despite queries, the ECI has not responded publicly.
This confirmation underscores gaps in data oversight post-ECI approvals. As the report is now public, it raises questions about protecting electoral privacy in digital governance. Stay informed—your data matters.
Read the report here:
Under our Electoral Roll Project, we covered the issue from several aspects and published a series of stories. After Bihar, the ECI has announced that it will conduct SIR across India. We will follow it to see how it unfolds.
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Warm Regards,
Nitin Sethi
Editor
The Reporters’ Collective