Sensitive data on India's Scorpene submarines leaked

Sensitive data related to India's Scorpene submarines has been leaked, with French shipbuilder DCNS which designed the submarine facing a leak of documents spreading over 22,000 pages, a report in Australian media revealed on Tuesday.

According to a report in The Australian, DCNS, which recently won a contract to design 12 submarines for Australia, includes details of submarine's underwater sensors, above-water sensors, combat management system, torpedo launch system and specifications, communications system and navigation systems.

Variants of Scorpene submarines are also used by Malaysia and Chile with Brazil to join the club soon.

First of the Scorpene class submarines being built in India Kalvari went for sea trials in May, 2016 and is expected to be inducted in the Indian Navy soon.

Indian Navy officials have said the six submarines, once inducted, would form the core of the Navy's submarine arm for the next two decades.

According to the report, DCNS has said that such a leak of technical data could not happen with its proposed submarine for Australia.

The DCNS also implied that the leak might have occurred at India's end, rather than from France.

"Uncontrolled technical data is not possible in the Australian Aarrangements," the company said as per the report in The Australian.

"Multiple and independent controls exist within DCNS to prevent unauthorised access to data and all data movements are encrypted and recorded. In the case of India, where a DCNS design is built by a local company, DCNS is the provider and not the controller of technical data," it said.

--IANS

ao/lok