Congress alleges CBSE answer booklet data leak; Board denies security breach

The Congress alleged that answer booklets of 20 lakh CBSE Class 12 students were exposed online, raising serious privacy concerns. The CBSE denied any security breach, asserting that its evaluation portal remained secure and that allegations were misleading.

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday alleged a security and privacy breach in the CBSE’s evaluation portal that allegedly brought answer booklets of 20 lakh Class 12 students into the public domain, a charge rejected by the CBSE.

The CBSE has repeatedly refuted charges of security lapses on the portal or wrongdoing in selecting the vendor to scan booklets for the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.

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Hitting out at the CBSE, Congress MP and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh in a post on X said, “Today, in the latest developments from the Minister of Scandals’ Ministry, it has come to light that the answer booklets of 20 lakh Class 12 students of CBSE were available in the public domain.”

“This is a massive data leak that has put the privacy of 20 lakh students at risk. The incompetence and insensitivity of COEMPT has once again been exposed. This is the very company to which CBSE awarded the contract after altering the technical conditions of the RFP — a change that likely benefited COEMPT,” he said.

“The leaked answer booklets show signs of paper folding and shadows — marks typically associated with scans done using mobile phones rather than scanning machines. We know that the requirement for robotic scanners was removed in the third RFP. This raises the question: what kind of scanners did COEMPT actually use? Why is the scan quality so poor?” said Ramesh, General Secretary in charge of Congress Communications.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday refuted claims of a social media user that the On-Screen Marking (OSM) was compromised by him and said that no security breaches have come to light.

Assuring students about the strong safeguards implemented to ensure the integrity of the platform, the Board issued a clarification regarding the misleading claim made by the social media user.

In a message on X, the CBSE said, “In a post made by a user on social media, it has been claimed that the CBSE On Screen Marking (OSM) bearing URL: http://cbse.onmarks.co.in was compromised by him on February 26, 2026. This has also formed the basis for a few news articles.”

“At the outset, it is clarified that the Portal used for evaluation of answer-books bore a different URL, which has neither been compromised nor does it have the vulnerabilities indicated in the said social media post,” it said.

The CBSE also rejected Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of impropriety over entering into a contract with a particular education technology firm for scanning answer booklets.

“It is erroneous, misleading, and not based on facts,” the CBSE posted on social media platform X.