Aarogya Setu row: CIC pulls up Centre for 'no data on app creators'; app clarifies

In a controversial development, Central Information Commission (CIC) on Tuesday issued show-cause tices to CPIOs, Ministry of Electronics, National Informatics Centre, National E-Governance Division (NeGD) after it failed to inform who and how Aarogya Setu app was created. CIC asked NIC to explain how it h information about creation of App, inspite of being mentioned as platform's designer, developer and host, as per reports. app has issued a clarification regarding its creation, sharing open-access source code of app - which will give details regarding app.

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What was Aarogya Setu 'creators' issue?

CIC issued show-cause tices after Ministry of Electronics & Information Techlogy (MeitY) h failed to furnish information about process of creation of Aarogya Setu App to an RTI query. As per ministry's RTI reply, NIC stated that it "does t hold information" relating to App's creation. After reing such a baffling reply, petitioner h pointed out that this lapse could 'essentially le to security compromise of millions of Indians' personal and user data'. CIC n held that 'denial of information cant be used by public authorities to push off matter', asking how it is possible that App was created by NIC, but has clue about its origin.

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Aarogya Setu clarification

In response to CIC's summons, Aarogya Setu clarified that app was developed in 21 days by NIC in collaboration with volunteers from industry and acemia. names of those associated with development of app and manment of app ecosystem at various sts were shared when code was released in public domain. app has been developed by more than 16.23 crore users augmenting efforts of front line health workers in COVID-19 fight.

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What is Aarogya Setu App?

Centre's Aarogya Setu App is currently being used for contact-tracing amid COVID-19 pandemic. application uses  Bluetooth and GPS data of user to collect surveillance for contact tracing in Containment Zones. Experts state that app's us of GPS-based location data is gaining more date than what is necessary. Moreover, experts state that location data is t used by app on an individual basis, but on an aggregated basis. After several data analysts questioned why Centre has t me source code of app available for examination by larger techlogy community, Centre me source code available on open source on 26 May 2020.