The newspaper, The Australian, reported August 24 that more than 22,000 pages detailing the combat and performance capabilities of six Scorpene-class submarines produced by India in partnership with French company DCNS had been leaked.
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French shipbuilder DCNS designed the submarines in a $3.5-billion deal with India.
The incident emerged in a news report on Tuesday in The Australian, which also released a few sample documents.
Scorpene class submarines has been build in India Kalvari first time and went for trial in May 2016, it is expected to be soon inducted in Indian Navy.
Additionally, the Indian Navy has also issued a fresh statement saying, “Government is seized of the reported leak of documents related to the ongoing Indian Scorpene submarine programme as reported in sections of the media”.
Ship maker DCNS have initiated the inquiry from their end.
DCNS, whose two-third is owned by the French government, will be designing 12 new submarines for Australia; deal is worth 50 bn United States dollars, and the leak might compromise the security of classified data on the submarines, as per the report.
“For now we don’t know if the information is correct”, a DCNS spokeswoman said.
Highly sensitive details of documents, detailing the secret combat capabilities of six submarines being built in Mumbai, have been leaked.
The Indian Navy has expressed concern to French authorities over the reported leakage of data pertaining to the Scorpene submarines being built for India.
DCNS, which is 35% owned by Thales, said it was working to determine if any harm had been caused to clients and whether commercial espionage was to blame.
Submarine Institute of Australia executive director David Nicholls said Australian submarine programs have always been managed under stringent security requirements which protected all information and technical data. “What I understand is there is a hacking”. “We will find out what has happened”. Navy Chief has been asked to analyze as to what exactly has been leaked.
DCNS, which is also vying for submarine contracts in Norway and Poland, beat Germany’s ThyssenKrupp AG and a Japanese-government backed bid by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Australia.
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The leaked documents cover the Scorpene-class model and do not contain any details of the vessel now being designed for the Australian fleet.
