India’s virus-track app gets 50 million users amid concerns

Bloomberg

An app launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to track and contain the spread of the coronavirus is the fastest ever to reach 50 million users, while being dogged by privacy concerns.
Aarogya Setu — Hindi for Healthcare Bridge — alerts users if they come in contact with an infected person and informs them about health services they could contact. It garnered 50 million users in 13 days, tweeted Amitabh Kant, chief executive officer at government think tank Niti Aayog.
That’s the fastest pace for any app including Facebook,
he said.
Singapore also launched TraceTogether app last month. Apple Inc and Google have joined hands to develop a technology to curb the spread of the virus by telling users they should quarantine or isolate themselves after contact with an infected individual.
“Digital technologies can be used to monitor the spread
of Covid-19. Such initiatives, largely voluntary, have been successful in helping combat the pandemic in East Asia,” the World Bank said in its South Asia Economic Focus report.
Aarogya Setu compares unfavorably with TraceTogether, according to the Internet Freedom Foundation. While 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; other apps just collect one data point which is subsequently replaced with a scrubbed device identifier while Aarogya Setu collects multiple data points for personal and sensitive personal information which increases privacy risks.