Twitter India forced to hire govt agent on payroll, claims whistleblower: Report

A former Twitter Inc security chief has alleged that the Indian government forced the social media firm to put a government agent on the payroll, according to a whistleblower disclosure with U.S. regulators.

Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko raised the issue with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission among other security lapse claims at Twitter.

He said the government agent would have had access to sensitive user data due to Twitter’s weak security infrastructure, according to a redacted version of the complaint uploaded by the Washington Post newspaper and verified by Zatko’s attorney at Whistleblower Aid.

A company source told Reuters that the allegations about the India government had surfaced previously within Twitter, without elaborating further.