Several parents of students who have graduated from classes ten and twelve say they are being flooded with unsolicited messages from colleges on their mobile phones. They suspect that private data submitted to various education boards may have been compromised.
“How else will a management know that we are looking to enrol our children in college,” said parents, adding that messages were being sent from educational institutions across the State.
The Parents’ Association has decided to file a complaint with the Department of Primary and Secondary Education urging an inquiry into how their data was leaked.
Mullahalli Suri, president of Parents' Association, alleged that confidential student data was sold to educational institutions. “I will petition the Principal Secretary of the department to initiate action in this regard,” he said.
The allegations are yet to be proved.
Many educational institutions have been sending multiple messages to parents over the past few months. However, according to students and parents, the number of spam messages has increased after the results were announced.
A parent whose son completed SSLC examination said that a few days after the school submitted his son’s registration details to the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB), he started receiving SMSes from various colleges listing the courses offered by them. “Initially, we suspected the school of sharing our data, but later learnt that parents from several schools are facing this menace,” said the parent.
The child of Gayatri S. has just finished second PU. She never shared her phone number on any platform. “Yet, I’m getting messages from colleges. This is alarming. I hope the department takes up this issue seriously,” he said.
S.R. Umashankar, Principal Secretary of the department, said it is unlikely that the data was leaked from either the KSEEB or the Department of Pre-University Education. “We will, however, cross-check with our team and ensure that we take up more measures to safeguard against it,” he said. The department will also check if the data was hacked.
