AP Citizens’ Medical History May Not Be Private

If you live in Andhra Pradesh and happen to buy medicines at Anna Sanjivini store, your medical data may not be as private as you would like it to be.

A major security breach in Andhra Pradesh was noticed when an unsecured website not merely accessed, but made public, details of medicines purchased by citizens from Anna Sanjivini stores. The breach was discovered by security researcher Srinivas Kodali.

According to him, these details had been in the public domain for some time. Imagine if information such as the number of people who bought Suhagra 50, the generic version of Viagra on a specific date from the Anna Sanjivini store in a certain place, became public, to cite one instance.

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Anna Sanjivini stores set by the Andhra Pradesh government are general medical stores meant to supply medicines for critical and long-term illnesses at low costs. The government has access to information on the purchases made by the public in any of the government facilities. The flip side of this that information on the state of health of every individual can be tracked by the government.

The implicit breach of privacy in this is obvious since the purchase of medicines by an individual is directly linked to the ailment he has. Earlier, in a similar case, Aadhar card data of more than 1.30 lakh citizens in AP became public, as part of a document which said, "Beneficiary Details belonging to Entry Report for Scheme Hudhud," on the Andhra Pradesh State Housing Corporation. It listed all details of the individual including address, mobile number, Aadhaar number, bank account and branch, among other things.