A former Twitter safety chief has alleged that the Indian authorities compelled the social media agency to place a authorities agent on the payroll, in line with a whistleblower disclosure with US regulators. Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko raised the difficulty with the US Securities and Exchange Commission amongst different safety lapse claims at Twitter.

He stated the federal government agent would have had entry to delicate person knowledge as a consequence of Twitter’s weak safety infrastructure, in line with a redacted model of the criticism uploaded by the Washington Post newspaper and verified by Zatko’s legal professional at Whistleblower Aid.

An organization supply informed Reuters that the allegations concerning the India authorities had surfaced beforehand inside Twitter, with out elaborating additional.

Representatives for India’s IT ministry didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

“What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context,” a Twitter spokesperson stated in an announcement concerning Zatko’s allegations.

Twitter is engaged in a authorized problem in opposition to the Indian authorities after it requested an area court docket in July to overturn some authorities orders to take away content material from the social media platform, and alleged abuse of energy by officers.

The subsequent listening to within the case is ready for Thursday.

“The company did not in fact disclose to users that it was believed by the executive team that the Indian government had succeeded in placing agents on the company payroll,” Zatko’s criticism famous.

The Washington Post report stated that supporting info for Zatko’s claims had gone to the National Security Division of the US Justice Department and the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Earlier this month, a US court docket convicted a former Twitter supervisor accused of spying for Saudi Arabia on six legal counts, together with appearing as an agent for the nation and making an attempt to disguise a cost from an official tied to Saudi’s royal household.