Update: After publication, Arnab Kumar, program director at NITI Aayog, spoke to The Ken to provide inputs on Aarogya Setu. On 12 April, he said, Aarogya Setu’s privacy policy had been changed to be more specific about a few details. This included information about data being purged from the server side in 45 days or 60 days depending on the risk-level of the user. Kumar said Aarogya Setu was always intended to be one-stop app for Covid-19.
GOT PRIVACY?
Fishing with dynamite: India’s contact tracing overreach
As concerns over data privacy dog Aarogya Setu, states like Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu already have access to alternatives
Aarogya Setu is India’s newest weapon to combat the Covid-19 pandemic
However, the contact tracing app collects more personal data than is needed for tracing, raising privacy concerns
The Indian govt seems to want to use it to generate reports and heat maps, but there are less intrusive ways to do this
Other countries have developed similar apps, with fewer privacy pitfalls. Even in India, more transparent alternatives to Aarogya Setu are being developed
