Marketing agencies, which actively engage with political parties during election campaigning, are buying voter details online - including names, mobile numbers and locations - and privately sharing it on the Cloud at a paltry 1 paisa for each data set, industry players have said.
The data is being sold by vendors or brokers, which include websites such as Fiverr, SMS Achariya, Dialme24, Indiaemaildatabase, who are advertising online about ways to purchase such data and can easily be tracked using Google search, which was not the case a few years ago. For instance, on indiaemaildatabase.com, an individual can buy 1,00,000 email and mobile records at a starting package of 899, the website says.
ET spoke to multiple digital marketing agency owners that are handling campaigns for regional and national parties during the election. They usually send 50-60 lakh SMSes pan-India in a day and the automated work usually starts 2-3 months prior to elections. For a political party, one message costs around 8-9 paisa, while the rates are 14-16 paisa for each voice call.
"You can Google for any location and come across hundreds of data vendors and buy them as per your requirement. Today, if one goes to a market and asks for all top executives of a company, he can buy that in CD format for around 500," says Ankit Grover of UAA Marketing, which is based in Delhi.
Depending on a company's target, these databases are sold based on location, age, profession and gender. Experts suggest data needs increase by 50% during election season, which is why purchasing of such data inevitably spikes. While such data was mostly sold in CD format or the dark web until a few years ago, sharing links through cloud-based services has become the preferred choice now since bulk data can easily be shared.
"We get funds directly from the candidates or the party for marketing. Depending on the location of the targeted voters, we purchase the data. As much as 75% of the purchased data is usually accurate," says Sudhir Pratap of Inexus Technologies, a marketing firm.
"We are slowly moving to WhatsApp where we charge 12-20 paisa for a message, depending on whether it is a regional or national party," says Pratap. Regional parties spend more on such campaigns than national parties to highlight their candidates, marketers say.
"Selling such databases has become a full-fledged profession for vendors. During election time, these agencies easily make up to 30 crore in a month," says Rajshekhar Rajaharia, a cybersecurity expert, who owns Yolike Technologies which works with marketing firms.
Over the past few months, social media has also been flooded with complaints over such calls and messages. Even users who have activated the 'Do Not Disturb' feature on their phones, which block such calls and messages, have received election messages.
"These numbers included in the databases are not categorised as DND numbers, so we cannot exclude them," said a marketing professional who did not wish to be named. Many marketing professionals bypass regulations to send messages to DND numbers, experts say.
Pavan Duggal, a cyberlaw expert said that while this has been broadly covered under the Information Technology Act, it is still a grey area. "Once we have the privacy and data protection bills implemented, there will be ramifications on this."