In a complaint to the Central Bureau of Investigation, a medical student from Bhopal has accused 17 websites of leaking personal information of students who appeared for the Joint Entrance Examination and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) (Undergraduate and Postgraduate). According to the complaint filed by Vivek Pandey, these websites also provide the data of CBSE students from classes VI to XII.
In his letter, Vivek has accused these websites of selling students' data to brokers who contact the aspirants for paid seats in private colleges. He has also shared such call recordings, which he allegedly accessed, to prove the same. "These agents, via SMS and phone calls seek details about how much money they can shell out. Most of these are attempts to extort money," says Vivek, who also claims to be an RTI activist and a whistleblower. The websites provide data of students, including their names, parents' name, registration number, address and mobile numbers.
He also shared screenshots of exam-related advertisement texts that the students received from various service providers. A few students have tweeted these screenshots, where they claimed that they haven't shared any information about themselves with anyone. In a few of them, the students are addressed as JEE/NEET aspirants. Vivek alleges that similar data leak has happened in the past too and thinks that the source of this could be coaching centres. Owing to another complaint of his, he claims that these websites were once shut but are currently functional.
