As India settles into an extended coronavirus lockdown, the government wants to ensure it fervently pursues contact tracing.
To this end, the Narendra Modi government launched the Aarogya Setu (Hindi for a bridge to healthcare) mobile app on April 2. The app is meant to alert users if they have come in contact with a Covid-19 positive patient, and what measures they need to take in case that happens. But cybersecurity experts worry that Aarogya Setu could violate its users’ privacy and be a surveillance tool in the hands of the government.
“As such, the Aarogya Setu application appears to clearly be inconsistent with privacy-first efforts which are being considered by technologists and governments,” wrote Sidharth Deb, policy and parliamentary counsel at Internet Freedom Foundation, in a paper (pdf). The paper evaluates Aarogya Setu on various privacy and safety parameters against two similar apps specific to Covid-19—the TraceTogether app from the Singapore government, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Private Kit: Safe Paths project.
Despite glaring flaws, prime minister Modi recommended yesterday (April 14) that citizens download this app while announcing an extension of the national lockdown till May 3. Several government agencies have also been spreading awareness about Aarogya Setu through different social media and other channels.
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One reason for this could be that for the app to successfully undertake contact tracing for Covid-19, at least 50% of India’s population needs to download the app. That in itself may prove a challenge given that only over 500 million people among India’s 1.3 billion have smartphones.
But privacy concerns are still at the heart of all issues with Aarogya Setu.
All intents and purposes
Purpose limitation, which predefines the end to which data collected will be used, is a key factor in privacy agreements. Vague language in Aarogya Setu’s privacy agreement leaves it open for the government to repurpose this data for its other agencies. “To protect people’s right to privacy, countries (including Singapore) say that contact tracing will be used strictly for disease control and cannot be used to enforce lockdowns or quarantines. Aarogya Setu retains the flexibility to do just that, or to ensure comply legal orders and so on,” says IFF’s explainer about the app.
Source: Quartz
