For the past few days, SMS messages have been continuously coming from SMS gateways like 'AT Alert' and 'SI Alert', especially to Nepal Telecom mobile numbers, calling for participation in the royalist protests.

Along with such messages, there are widespread questions on social media about how mobile numbers were ‘leaked’. As of Tuesday, about 6 million SMSes have been sent.

In these SMSes, which are circulated in the name of Nitraz Sedhai, it appears that the message was sent in an organized manner through an SMS gateway, saying, ‘We will create a great, traditional kingdom of Nepal with a directly elected Prime Minister by eliminating the provinces.’ ‘For the last two/three days, I have been receiving messages on my mobile from a person named Nitraz Sedhai, he will solve all the problems of Nepal,’ journalist Devaki Bista wrote on Facebook, ‘I have serious objections to the unauthorized provision of numbers like this. I do not know this person.’ She posted, tagging the Nepal Police, saying that using mobile numbers for propaganda without consent is an illegal and condemnable act.

The account was blocked only after about 50 to 60 lakh SMS were sent - Rajan Koirala, Manager, Sales and Marketing of Aakash SMS This incident of sending SMS on a large number of mobile phones has brought the issue of personal privacy and data security of citizens into the debate. In addition, questions have also been raised about how this is happening. According to Rajan Koirala, Sales and Marketing Manager of Aakash SMS, a ‘bulk message’ service provider that allows messages to be sent to many people at once, the ‘AT Alert’ seen in the message that is currently circulating is their sender ID. He said that an agreement was reached with an organization named ‘Vedvyas Enterprises Private Limited’ about 15 days ago to send this message. According to Koirala, the enterprise is under the direction of Sidhai.

Koirala said that Vedvyas Enterprises had previously used the AT Alert service to send promotional messages related to their business, so he trusted them this time too. Koirala said that he tried to contact them after sending the disputed message but could not be contacted so far. These messages were sent using Nepal Telecom’s network. According to Koirala, they came to know about it only after about 50 to 60 million SMSes were sent and blocked the account. When I called Nitish Sedai's mobile number to get his opinion on this, I could not be contacted.

Koirala claimed that he did not know that such a political message was sent because he has 12 to 15 thousand customers and does not have a mechanism to view or filter everyone's content in real-time. 'We are the value-added service provider of Nepal Telecom and Ncell,' Koirala said, 'We provide a gateway message system to customers, in which they send messages by putting the number and content of their choice. Our clients upload the numbers from their own Excel sheets and send the content.'

Nepal Telecom issued a statement on Tuesday, claiming that it did not provide the personal mobile number or any details of the customers. Telecom has concluded that the service providers misused the Value Added Service (VAS) system for commercial purposes to send messages of a political nature. ‘Nepal Telecom has been giving permission to various service providers to send SMS for the promotion of various businesses,’ the telecom said in a statement, ‘However, Nepal Telecom does not provide the personal mobile number and other details of any service recipient.’ The telecom has always been sensitive to the privacy of its customers and has expressed its commitment to respecting privacy.

The regulatory body Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) is currently investigating the matter and efforts are being made to identify the ‘originator’. According to an employee of the authority, since it is not possible to send such a large number of messages by generating random numbers, there is a suspicion that data may have been leaked or stolen from somewhere. It has been stated that sentences like ‘removing a province’ are against the constitution and the regulator is trying to find out exactly how such messages were distributed. ‘In bulk SMS, the numbers are in the carrier (network), but how those numbers were selected or how this work was done is important,’ said Meen Prasad Aryal, spokesperson for the authority, ‘We have understood this issue with Nepal Telecom, we will know more after receiving a response from there.’

Advocate Baburam Aryal said that in this SMS case, the main issue is the misuse of data or where the numbers were collected from. He clarified that this is a violation of the Personal Privacy Act, the Advertising Act and the Telecommunications Act. ‘Even though operators have set certain conditions and procedures to operate SMS-based services under value-added services, service providers have been ignoring them,’ said Aryal, ‘We do not even have the habit of complaining when your details are leaked. This incident shows that digital awareness among the general public and accountability in institutions are in a very weak state.’