Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday was part of a Zoom meeting with IT industry leaders and company executives, days after the Union government issued an advisory against the use of the video conferencing application over privacy concerns.
The Zoom call however was not hosted by the ministry, but by a BJP member, Raghunath Veraballi, who is the BJP’s District President in Mancherial, Telangana.
TNM has accessed the broadcast invitation that was sent out which also contained the Zoom meeting ID and the password.
“Shri Ravishankar Prasad ji would like to speak on the Role of Government in ensuring success of IT Services Industry in post COVID-19 environment. He would also like to hear your concerns and suggestions. IT Entrepreneurs and C-level executives are invited for this session,” the invite said.
The meeting took place at 12 pm on Thursday, a source who briefly joined the Zoom call told TNM. The source added that the meeting did happen and that Ravi Shankar Prasad was talking about the government’s plan amid COVID-19. The source added that a few entrepreneurs were concerned why the IT Minister used Zoom despite several concerns over security, and especially when government officials have been advised against using it.
When posed with a query, a source in the IT Ministry told TNM that they had taken care to not use a laptop that had sensitive information. "It was not an event organised by the ministry, therefore the minister decided to participate. We are aware of the risks and ensured that we used a laptop that is otherwise not used for any ministry-related work and does not have any data," the source said.
Organised a video conference of 200+ IT Leaders / CxOs with Shri Ravishankar Prasad ji Union IT Minister regarding the challenges in Post COVID-19 environment. @rsprasad @bandisanjay_bjp @BJP4Telangana pic.twitter.com/CeKgt3Hxew
— Raghu Verabelli (@raghu_verabelli) April 30, 2020
On April 16, the union government had issued an advisory stating that Zoom is not a safe platform and that the application is not for use by government officers or officials for official purposes. It had issued guidelines to safeguard private individuals who would still like to use the platform for private purposes. The advisory by the government linked to a document by the Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord) where protective measures to be taken by individuals were detailed.
Earlier, the national cybersecurity agency had also stated that the unguarded usage of Zoom can be vulnerable to cyber attacks, including leakage of sensitive office information to cybercriminals.
A day later, Zoom responded to complaints about user safety and stated that it had introduced many security measures to address the users’ concerns.
The application has become immensely popular since the COVID-19 lockdown forced many people to start working from home.
The Union government had also called upon India-based developers to create a tool with the primary function of video-conferencing as an alternative to Zoom. This solution from the concept stage will be scrutinised for various aspects, including data security features. The selected application will get a contract for use by Central and state government entities for video-conferencing purposes for a period of four years.