Twitter's Indian rival Koo leaking users' personal data? Here's what French security researcher claims

NEW DELHI: Micro-blogging platform Twitter’s Indian rival Koo is leaking its users’ personal sensitive data, a French security researcher Robert Baptiste has claimed.

Robert Baptiste, who goes by the pseudonym Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y on Twitter, has claimed that the new Indian micro-blogging app exposes its users' personal data.

Baptiste claimed that he spent 30 minutes on Koo at the request of users on Twitter and found that the microblogging platform was exposing sensitive information of its users, such as email addresses, names, gender, and more. 

The French security researcher also posted a series of tweets to detail his findings about the Indian app Koo. Proving his point further, Baptiste posted a screenshot suggesting that it was fairly easy for him to access the personal information of Koo users.

You asked so I did it. I spent 30 min on this new Koo app. The app is leaking of the personal data of his users: email, dob, name, marital status, gender, ... https://t.co/87Et18MrOg pic.twitter.com/qzrXeFBW0L

— Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) February 10, 2021

Baptiste confirmed that the Indian app leaked personal data of its users including email, date of birth, marital status, and gender. In more screenshots, Baptiste also suggested that Koo had a domain registered in the US with the registrant based in China. 

This comes after the new micro-blogging platform gained some prominence after the government warned Twitter to block some accounts related to the ongoing farmers' protest - a move partially rejected by Twitter. It may be noted that several leading Indian politicians and lawmakers have endorsed Koo and urged their followers to switch to the ‘Made-in-India’ application from Twitter.

After Twitter’s refusal to block some accounts over provoking tweets related to the ongoing farmers' protests, a trend has begun in favour of the home-grown Indian app. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and other government departments have come up with verified handles on Koo.

Top Modi government ministers politicians like Piyush Goyal, Ravi Shankar Prasad and BJP leaders including Sambit Patra, Tejasvi Surya etc have begun rallying against Twitter by informing that they have switched to Koo.

They have even urged their followers to join them on the new Indian app. Koo, which is available on desktop, iOS, and Android, offers a Twitter-like experience in Indian languages. The app had won the government's Digital India ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge’ last year, which was meant to encourage local app development. 

Koo has been developed by Aprameya Radhakrishna, who is also the Co-Founder and CEO of the platform that was launched in March last year.

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