The coronavirus pandemic appears to be on the brink of turning India into a surveillance state. After promoting the Aarogya Setu app, the Central government is now suggesting that states use technology like mobile phone tracking to keep a tab on patients, especially under home quarantine. The move comes after the issue of difficulties in tracking such patients was discussed by representatives of state governments at a meeting with Union Cabinet Secretary, Rajiv Gauba, the Hindustan Times reported.
Apps used by different states
Some states, like Punjab and Haryana are already using mobile technology to check the status of patients. In Haryana, in Gurugram and Faridabad especially, authorities were having a hard time to check on “untraceable” positive patients, the Tribune reported. Out of Gurugram’s 2,737 and Faridabad’s 929 active patients, 120 and 50 were untraceable respectively. It was reported that patients testing at private labs were submitting fake addresses and wrong mobile numbers. Hence, in a bid to undertake damage control, both the districts had mandated OTP generation on registered mobile numbers before sample collection and demanded the submission of an official ID which had the patient’s permanent address.
In Punjab too, early on, the government introduced the Coronavirus Alert (COVA) app and became the first state to use a trove of cellphone data like Call Detail Records and GPS to enforce the lockdown and trace the contacts of Covid-19 patients, The Indian Express reported. It was made mandatory only for those in quarantine in hospitals and home. The app was downloaded on more than 6.5 lakh mobile phones and used cell phone data to fence, rather “geo-fence” data under quarantine. Breaching the “geo-fence” would send an alert to Punjab’s COVA control room, after which officials would land at people’s doorsteps to ensure enforcement. Around 18,929 people were under home quarantine in the state. However, with government figures showing that only 15% of those under quarantine had installed the app, the government was mulling on putting “lockable” and reusable GPS wrist bands on the wrists of those who haven’t downloaded the app, IE reported.
Karnataka uses the Corona Watch app which shows the travel history and location of people registered with it.
Himachal Pradesh uses Corona Mukt Himachal, an OTP based app to monitor people under home quarantine. The app has the facility of locking the location to alert authorities in case of violations.
Tamil Nadu uses the Covid-19 Quarantine Monitor to ensure that individuals do not violate home quarantine. It also uses CoBuddy, an app relying on facial recognition to monitor those under home quarantine and have essential goods sent to them.
Other apps like Cowin-20, Test Yourself Goa and Test Yourself Puducherry are also in use.
Aarogya Setu app
Sabrang India had earlier reported about Aarogya Setu, an app developed by the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and was released in association with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). The app would allow a user to identify any infected person around them, provided both people have downloaded the app. Also, the infected person should have used the app to inform the government that they are either infected or are showing symptoms of the infection. The app works by collecting a user’s location data and cross referencing it with the Covid-19 test database of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
Privacy violations
Previously serious concerns were raised about the Aarogya Setu app for alleged privacy violations. It requires continuous access to the user’s phone’s Bluetooth, something that was seen by experts as a form of constant surveillance.
The app requires the user’s name, phone number, age, sex, profession and countries visited which would be updated on a government server and provide the user with a unique digital ID (DID). Given how a person’s infected status would only show if they upload this information to the app and consequently the government server, the app also therefore, inadvertently discourages people from reporting symptoms or infection status, rendering the entire purpose of the app pointless! A study by Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) pointed out that in the case of Aarogya Setu, neither the app nor the Data Access and Knowledge Sharing Protocol—which was subsequently issued—provide for a fixed period of time after which the collected data will be destroyed.
Punjab’s COVA app too has discrepancies when it comes to safeguarding a user’s privacy, The Indian Express reported. It was found that the privacy policy of the COVA app was taken from the GOI’s e-governance UMANG app. However, essential clauses like allowing users to delete their account and the assurance to remove all personal information from the system on such deletion so that it is not accessible from any ‘regular operation’ but is retained in an encrypted form for legal purposes, have not been incorporated in COVA app policy.
Past studies across the world during the time of epidemics like Ebola have shown that apps cannot replace the efficacy on efforts on the field. The efficacy of apps depend on self-declaration, which might not always be accurate. The latest expression of interest floated by the Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL) which listed “healthcare equipment” to be delivered by bidders included a Rescue Team / Personnel Tracking GPS Solution and a Covid-19 Patient Tracking Tool, the first specification of both which state they should be “Intelligence investigation platform & tactical tool to detect, prevent and investigate threats to national security using CDR, IPDR, Tower, Mobile Phone Forensics Data”.
Related:
Covid-19: Does the Aarogya Setu app violate privacy?
Aarogya Setu app in hot water due to MHA’s order of mandatory downloads