AAROGYA SETU : A ROUTE TO HEALTH OR TO GRAVE CONCERN?

~AMRITBANI

For the purpose of battling Covid19 , the Indian government released a mobile contact tracing application named 'Aarogya Setu' to ensure the utmost safety for its citizens by updating information about the containment zones, virus hotspots and more such related information . In a digitally connected world , the government turned to mobile technology to keep their citizens informed about and protected from the virus. It can assist a person with the self-diagnosis and help to adopt precautionary measures to avoid infection. In essence, this application connects Indian health services to its people at this unpredictable time.

This application is lately getting a lot of attention, not only because of the purpose it serves but also because of concerns around data security of its users . While self-preservation and health are sufficient enough reasons to download the app . The government failed on the count to emphasize enough on it's security and the social stories for it's uptake. It lacks transparency since there is no publicly available information about what processes and techniques are followed for aggregation and anonymization of the personal data as claimed.

Contact tracing is fundamental to reining in the spread of the menacing covid-19. But what is worrisome is the app's invasion of privacy as its policy aims to confuse rather than clarify. Concerns are being raised over its compliance with the globally-held privacy standards . What exacerbates the threats is that currently, there is no legal framework that governs the Aarogya Setu app, beyond the privacy policy and the terms of use.

Also one of the most important reasons for the app to be effective is that it must help those who are most vulnerable to virus, but most of them do not own smartphones. Moreover , the app is people dependent, which means it needs widespread usage and regular self-reporting to be effective. Given the fact that there are bound to be variations in the levels of self-reporting, the efficacy of the app is apparently not foolproof.

Initially the app gained a tremendous amount of success garnering over 10 million users within days, but lately things have slowed down due to all these allegations of the data breach and other above mentioned drawbacks.

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