Aarogya Setu App

Aarogya Setu App(Privacy Concern)

Aarogya Setu App

Main cause of Concern 

The Union's most significant responses to the pandemic is based on invasive use of technology in some cases it is a welcome step.The State can utilise people’s personal health data through this contact tracing App.The Centre's provision to mandatory use of its contact tracing Aarogya Setu App as a robust Covid-19 combat measures,has created much uproar.The worrying point is that this App falls short of established legal standards for the protection of privacy of the citizens at large.The implications of privacy violation is disturbing.Opposition said that the datas collected from this app or other security measures can be used against public and it could be a severe case of privacy breach.Populace's security concerns should be of high priority for the state.Governments forced attempt tp adopt the Aarogya Setu App is suspecious in nature.Lower income groups are the worst affected citizenry in the country.According to the latest notification, every employer must ensure that its workforce has downloaded and is using the app.It has also be made mandatory for travellers on public transport systems.Newly manufactured martphones will come with the app pre-installed.Mainly,this app can be used only on a smartphone.If GPS location is switched on and Bluetooth then it will monitor the location of the user.And it also alerts the other Bluetooth-on devices in proximity.By using color coding it marks the user as health, Infected or recovered.By using big data,the app will supposedly be able to check for contact tracing if a given handset has been in a“redzone”, or near the handset of a user marked infected.Nearly half of India’s one billion mobile subscribers don’t use smartphones or data connections,since both handsets and tariffs are more expensive for them to use it.This segment is overwhelmingly lower-income People.These subscribers would not be able to download the app.Therefore they will be excluded from availing of public transport,or working.Or else, they would face the burden of being compelled to buy a smartphone and subscribe to a data connection when they have already suffered catastrophic economic loss in this crisis time. The security concerns arise from the fact that the app was put together in haste and the code is not open-source,unlike similar contact tracing apps released in Singapore and South Korea.This means that its security,or problems in programming, cannot be independently verified.It gathers huge amounts of critical and sensitive private data.The lack of open-source programming makes it difficult to judge what data it may be collecting.In addition to location,it may,for instance,be monitoring phone calls,or SMS-es.It may be reading social message posts and WhatsApp messages.The data is transferred to servers, which may or may not be secured pathways.The grim situation is that the  technical details about anonymisation are unknown.There is lack of clarity about which agency would be responsible in the case of data theft and privacy breach.

Aarogya Setu App

What lies Ahead? 

Broadly, technology has been invoked at three levels.First,in creating a list of persons suspected to be infected with COVID19,second,in deploying geofencing and drone imagery to monitor compliance by quarantined individuals,and third,through the use of contact tracing smartphone applications,such as Aarogya Setu.Each of these measures has induced a miasma of despair in this trying time.In creating a list of infected persons,State governments have channelled the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897.But this law scarcely accords the statepower to publicise this information.What’s more,these lists have also generated substantial second order harms.As the director of the All India Institute of Medical Science,Dr.Randeep Guleria,pointed out,the stigma attached to the disease has led to an increase in morbidity and mortality rates.This is the reason why many with COVID19 or flulike symptoms have refused to go to hospitals.The use of geofencing and drone technologies is similarly unsanctioned. While cellphone based surveillance might be plausible under the Telegraph Act of 1885,until now the orders authorising surveillance have not been published. Moreover,the modified surveillance drones used are equipped with the ability to conduct thermal imaging, night time reconnaissance,and also as some private vendors have claimed the ability to integrate facial recognition into existing databases such as
Aadhaar.

Conclusive Remarks. 

The proposed Personal Data Protection Bill has serious lacunae.It gives the state blanket permission to gather all data it pleases and citizens don’t have a right to forget.In the absence of specific legislation,the app may be misused and citizens should not be forced to download. Its utility will anyway remain limited.The government has no power to make the app’s use compulsory without legislative authorisation.There is no legislative guidance for the app’s purpose,functioning, and the nature of the use of the sensitive personal data it collects.Lawyers and activists have raised concerns not only over privacy,they also fear that assessments made on the basis of information collected may be used to restrict public movement and access.However,Aarogya Setu seems to be quite popular its downloads have crossed 75 million.And what the government has going for itself is that many countries are implementing mobile app use for contact tracing.More and more governments are introducing applications for automated location services to trace the contacts of those infected.India should abide by best practices elsewhere. 

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Milan Tomic

Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.

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