The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology is next scheduled to meet on November 20. As per the agenda on the Lok Sabha website, the committee, headed by Shashi Tharoor, will be briefed by representatives of Home Ministry, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) on the subject “citizen’s data security and privacy”. A member of the standing committee told MediaNama that the WhatsApp issue, wherein the Pegasus spyware was installed in people’s phones using a vulnerability in the app, “will be taken up as it led to the violation of privacy” of a number of Indian citizens. On whether the committee would discuss the cyber attack on Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, the member said, “That would be the logical inference since we deal with data, digital safety, etc.” and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has also been called. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), which is the body in charge of KKNPP, falls under the purview of DAE. MediaNama has reached out to Tharoor for comment. After news about Indian citizens affected by the Pegasus spyware gained traction, two parliamentary standing committees, on Home Affairs and on IT, had announced that they would look into the matter, as per a PTI report. The Home Affairs committee will discuss this issue at its meeting on November 15. Dept of Atomic Energy prepares for the meeting Sanjay Kumar, joint secretary in the DAE, told MediaNama that the Department was preparing a…
