Thiruvananthapuram: Amid an ongoing court dispute over a message on Dearness Allowance (DA) sent to government employees from the Chief Minister’s Office, documents have surfaced showing that the CMO also sought data from K-SMART. The records were released on Tuesday by Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala.

According to the documents, the request was not limited to information relating to government employees. This has intensified concerns that, beyond official staff data, details of members of the public may also have been accessed without their consent.

The letter reportedly sought data not only from SPARK but also from K-SMART — the state government’s digital platform that delivers more than 950 services through local self-government institutions. K-SMART serves as a registration platform for citizens availing these services. It is indicated that the database contains information relating to over one crore individuals, prompting questions over whether a data exposure larger than initially assumed may have occurred.
 

The communication was issued by Sreeram Sambasiva Rao, Officer on Special Duty in charge of the Chief Minister’s Office, to various departments. The letter states that the data was being sought as part of the creation of a “Centralised Notification Hub” for government services. It further explains that the Information and Public Relations Department is building a “data lake” for this purpose.

As part of the exercise, the letter requested personal details of users registered on K-SMART, including name, phone number, age, district, taluk, ward and local body.

The directive required that the information be shared by February 12, 2026 for the project, which is being implemented by the Information and Public Relations Department with the assistance of the IT Mission. The data was to be sent to the email address of the Assistant Mission Coordinator at the IT Mission.

The official explanation states that the information would be used to issue real-time notifications via SMS, email, WhatsApp and voice messages, and to send unified communications under the name “Government of Kerala”.