India forces its citizens to install an application to track contacts

02.05.2020, New Delhi.

In India, all employees of private and public sector must use a mobile application to track contacts, Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah said on May 2 to journalists.

The application “Aarogya Setu” (lit. “Health Bridge”), which was elaborated with the support of Government, is to be used by all Indian workers. The Government places responsibility on companies’ leadership for the implementation of it demand.

The application uses Bluetooth and GPS data in order to warn people that have recently contacted persons infected with the coronavirus that they could have been contaminated.

Indian Science and Technology Ministry’s representatives said that in order to make it work properly the application must be installed, at minimum, on 200 million telephones, while its overall population amounts to 1,3 billion. So far, it has been downloaded 83 million times.

The Indian authorities declared that the application will not be used to interfere to citizens’ private life as all data is being collected in anonymity.

Apple and Google are working on a toolbox for creating applications that track contacts of persons infected with the coronavirus. These apps will work via Bluetooth without the identification of citizens’ location by GPS. The data, collected by Google and Apple’s applications, will be stored on users’ gadgets.

Another approach implicates the storage of data on a centralized server as in the EU. However, some countries decline this approach, for instance, Germany.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on May 1 that the quarantine in the country will be extended for two weeks, but with possible easing for territories with low-risks of contamination.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency

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