Ex-Twitter security chief said the Indian government forced Twitter to hire an agent that had access to user data while intense protests rocked the nation

• Twitter's ex-security chief is alleging that the Indian government forced the firm to hire one of its agents.
• Pieter Zatko, who was fired in January, filed a whistleblower complaint in July, alleging various misconduct.

Twitter's former security chief is alleging that the Indian government forced the company to hire one of its agents, giving the employee access to sensitive user data at a time when intense protests were roiling the country.

As the Washington Post first reported, the ex-chief, Pieter Zatko, filed a sweeping whistleblower complaint with the Securities Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission in July. He alleged various instances of misconduct at Twitter, including executives putting user growth ahead of the safety of its users and the company risking national security.

"By knowingly permitting an Indian government agent direct unsupervised access to the company's systems and user data, Twitter executives violated the company's articulated commitments to its users," reads the complaint, which The Post viewed and published.

Zatko passed evidence supporting his claims to the National Security Division of the Justice Department and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, per The Post. An anonymous source confirmed to the newspaper that the employee in question was probably an Indian government agent.

A Twitter spokesperson told Insider that Zatko was fired in January after 15 months "for poor performance and leadership."

"What we've seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context," the spokesperson said. "Mr. Zatko's allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be."

The Post reported that the Indian government agent came onboard at Twitter as protests were sweeping the nation. It's unclear when the agent was hired, but farmers in India have been protesting agricultural laws that they feared could upend their business.

Since he filed his whistleblower complaint to the SEC, Zatko is legally protected from retaliation and could even be compensated if the agency can indeed definitively identify misconduct at Twitter.

This isn't the first time that news of Twitter user data allegedly being exposed to foreign actors has surfaced. Earlier this month, an ex-Twitter employee was found guilty of spying for Saudia Arabia by giving the personal information of users that were critical of the government to the Kingdom.