Union Minister rubbishes Rahul Gandhi's charge as 'pack of

Union Minister Alphons Kannanthanam today termed as a 'pack of lies' the charge of Congress President Rahul Gandhi that data from the Prime Minister's official App was being shared, without users' consent.

"This is exactly the fake news that Rahul Gandhi and company are propagating. It is a pack of lies',the Minister of state for Electronics and Information Technology and Tourism told reporters here.

"Do you think the Prime Minister of India is going to transfer the data to a private company in US? Come on...we are not nuts to believe this', Kannanthanam said, referring to Gandhi's statement on the issue.

Gandhi earlier in the day attacked the Prime Minister over allegations of data sharing from his official App without users' consent, a charge the BJP trashed.

He also accused the media of "burying" the story.

His attack on Modi was based on a media report in which a French vigilante hacker has purportedly alleged that data was stolen from his official App -- NaMo App -- without consent of the users.

The BJP reacted on Twitter saying it did not expect "any better" from the Congress chief. It also said the data is used only for analytics using third party service, similar to Google Analytics.

On his recent comments that Indians were reluctant to share data with the union government but would not object to getting scanned to get a visa, he said every citizen in every country has an ID card. "It is important as it empowers the citizen," Kannanthanam said.

The Minister, while speaking at the valedictory function of '#Future', an IT event at Kochi on March 23,had stated that 'We have absolutely no problems going and putting our fingerprints and iris and getting our whole body naked before a white man at all. We have no problem.'