Investigation reveals ECI voter data shared with Telangana govt and private tech firm in 2019

Hyderabad: An investigation by the Reporters’ Collective has revealed that the Election Commission of India (ECI) shared voter data, including photographs, with the Telangana government in 2019. The data was subsequently used in state-run projects involving private firms, raising serious concerns about privacy and electoral integrity.

According to the report, the data was first used in the Pensioner Live Verification System introduced in November 2019 to verify demographic details and photographs of pension recipients. The Telangana government engaged Hyderabad-based Posidex Technologies Private Limited, among other firms, to develop and test the software. This is the first known instance of ECI’s voter database being shared with a state government for a project involving private companies.

Documents obtained through an RTI filed by privacy activist S.Q. Masood revealed that Posidex integrated voter rolls maintained by the ECI with the state’s T-App and pension databases. An invoice from the company specifically mentioned the creation of web services linking pension verification with ECI’s EPIC data and Amazon Web Services to compare live photos of pensioners with their voter ID photographs.

While Posidex executives have given contradictory statements about their role, the company’s own invoice and a 2023 Telangana government presentation suggest that the voter database was used not only for pensions but later expanded under the Real-Time Data Authentication Initiative (RTDAI). By 2020, RTDAI was piloted in municipal elections to conduct facial authentication of voters and extended to student verification under the Degree Online Services, Telangana (DOST) portal.

Privacy activist Srinivas Kodali, in a complaint submitted to Telangana’s Chief Electoral Officer on August 28, 2025, alleged the unlawful sharing and misuse of electoral roll photographs and names for facial recognition applications. He pointed to a 2018 letter from Telangana’s CEO to the Deputy Election Commissioner confirming the sharing of the EPIC database with the State Resident Data Hub (SRDH), which stores demographic details including names, ages, addresses and photographs.

Kodali argued that this transfer, linked to the ECI’s 2015 initiative to connect voter IDs with Aadhaar, has enabled the repurposing of electoral data for multiple government services. He has demanded an audit of the process and the immediate removal of EPIC photographs from all external systems.

Reacting to the revelations, TMC MP Mahua Moitra criticized the ECI, saying it had been “caught lying again.” She pointed out that while the poll body has cited privacy to deny opposition demands for access to CCTV footage of polling stations, it had allowed a private firm access to the Telangana voter database.

The Election Commission is already facing mounting scrutiny, with opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, accusing it of colluding with the BJP in alleged voter deletions and “vote theft.” Separately, the Bihar Special Intensive Revision exercise has also drawn criticism for allegedly discriminatory practices that could disenfranchise large numbers of voters.