Aarogya Setu row: Centre takes action on lapses, says will furnish creator details to RTI

Complying with Central Information Commission (CIC)'s tice, Ministry of Electronics and IT on Thursday, said that it is committed to furnishing all information sought under RTI Act to applicant seeking Aarogya Setu App creators details. Moreover, ministry has directed to initiate suitable action against officers responsible for lapses, vising NIC and NeGD to do same. Recently, Ministry stirred a row after it failed to furnish details about creators of Aarogya Setu App.

Aarogya Setu row: CIC pulls up Centre for ' data on app creators'; app clarifies

Ministry: 'Will furnish all details' 

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CIC pulls up Ministry over Aarogya Setu creators

On Tuesday, 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. details were sought by a RTI petitioner.

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

app has issued a clarification regarding its creation, sharing open-access source code of app - which will give details regarding app. 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.

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.

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