New Delhi: The government’s contact tracing app Aarogya Setu, which started as a voluntary app, has now become mandatory.
Along with the lockdown 3.0 guidelines, the Union Home Ministry on Friday said that companies and organizations will have to achieve 100 per cent compliance on the use of Aarogya Setu by their employees.
“The use of Aarogya Setu app shall be made mandatory for all employees, both private and public. It shall be the responsibility of the head of the respective organisations to ensure 100 per cent coverage of this app among the employees,” the ministry said.
Earlier, the app was mandatory only for central government employees.
All residents of containment zones will also have to install the app and local authorities shall be responsible for 100 per cent coverage, the MHA declared.
The app is used for contact-tracing by communicating with nearby phones using Bluetooth and gathers GPS location data. In case a person with the app installed gets tested positive, it will be possible to trace all people he or she came in contact with.
There is a plan to add an e-pass feature to the app that will categorize people according to their risk levels of red, orange and green. The Delhi Metro will be allowing people with green status only.
China and many nations have started using such contact tracing apps. Most governments use only Bluetooth function, but India uses both GPS and Bluetooth. Google and Apple have created a decentralized approach to contact tracing while India is using a centralized approach raising privacy concerns.
Noted privacy and cybersecurity expert, Bruce Schneier said, “You take the app out grocery shopping with you and it subsequently alerts you of a contact. What should you do? It’s not accurate enough for you to quarantine yourself for two weeks. And without ubiquitous, cheap, fast, and accurate testing, you can’t confirm the app’s diagnosis. So the alert is useless. Similarly, assume you take the app out grocery shopping and it doesn’t alert you of any contact. Are you in the clear? No, you’re not. You actually have no idea if you’ve been infected. The end result is an app that doesn’t work.”
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