Tendulkar asks Twitterati to tag friends with their mobile numbers, kicks up a privacy storm

Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, in collaboration with IDBI Federal Life Insurance - the promoters of the Kochi, Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi marathon, on Monday tweeted asking people to share their numbers if they want to receive a call from him.

The promotion has Tendulkar telling his fans that he will call them to give a pep talk on fitness.

"Have friends with many excuses to not get fit? Tag them using #NoExcuses with their cities & mobile no & I may call to give them a pep talk!"

Have friends with many excuses to not get fit? Tag them using #NoExcuses with their cities & mobile no & I may call to give them a pep talk! pic.twitter.com/6iZMxuYowt

— sachin tendulkar (@sachin_rt) July 10, 2017

While this may seem harmless at first sight, Australian web security expert, Troy Hunt was quick to point out otherwise.

Known for creating the data breach search service Have I Been Pwned?, as well as for authoring several popular security-related courses, Hunt tweeted, "How do you mine troves of phone numbers from Indians? Get a famous cricketer to politely ask people to dox their friends! #NoExcuses"

Would it be too meta if I scraped these numbers off #NoExcuses then paid an Indian call centre to phone and ask for the tweet to be deleted? https://t.co/t2k3fDS8sO

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) July 10, 2017

He went on to add, "Would it be too meta if I scraped these numbers off #NoExcuses then paid an Indian call centre to phone and ask for the tweet to be deleted?"

Would it be too meta if I scraped these numbers off #NoExcuses then paid an Indian call centre to phone and ask for the tweet to be deleted? https://t.co/t2k3fDS8sO

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) July 10, 2017

Some Indian users also shared their concerns:

This is a privacy disaster. Sharing personal info here (esp mobile numbers) can get you banned. You might land in jail too.

— Kartik Dayanand (@KartikDayanand) July 10, 2017

The Jio database would come in handy to verify the information. 😜

— Mayank Kumar (@mayankdotnet) July 10, 2017