Ola Electric threatens to sue customer who tweeted about Guwahati accident

Bengaluru: Electric scooter maker Ola Electric has threatened legal action against Balwant Singh, who tweeted about his son Reetam Singh’s accident on March 26, blaming it on a malfunction of his Ola S1 Pro scooter. Ola has asked Singh to take down “all negative and defamatory statements, posts, tweets, re-tweets, reposts, articles and reports” made against Ola Electric.



The communication, sent by law firm Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan on behalf of Ola Electric, was in response to a “takedown notice” sent by Singh on April 23, asking Ola Electric to delete a tweet in which it shared details of the scooter’s telemetry data just before and during the accident. Singh said the company violated his son’s privacy by posting the data.



Both parties deny sending a legal notice. Reetam Singh told ET that the email his father sent was a “takedown notice”.

“Legal notice is sent by the lawyer of the individual; my father is not a lawyer,” he said. “You can send a normal notice as an individual. It was just an email.”

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An Ola Electric spokesperson said that the communication sent by its lawyers was a response to Singh’s legal notice.

In the communication, Ola Electric’s lawyers argued that the company had not violated its privacy policy as the data published “did not include any personally identifiable information or sensitive personal information”.

They said that since Singh already posted multiple documents and posts, including his medical records and health information on social media, he does not have a “legitimate expectation of privacy”.

“Once personal data is disclosed in the public domain, there cannot remain any reasonable and legitimate expectation of privacy thereof,” they said.

They added that Ola Electric is ready to have “a proper and respectful dialogue” with Singh to resolve the matter amicably.