New Delhi: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) have said they do not have any information about the “creation” of the Aarogya Setu application promoted by the government to contain the spread of COVID 19, responses termed as “preposterous” by the Central Information Commission.
The government has responded by saying the app was developed in the most transparent manner.
The transparency panel has issued a show cause notice to the NIC to explain why a penalty under the Right to Information (RTI) Act not be slapped on it for “prima facie obstruction of information and providing an evasive reply”.
Information Commissioner Vanaja N Sarna, in a terse order, pointed out that the website of the application mentions that the content on it is “owned, updated and maintained” by MyGov and MeitY and directed the CPIO of the ministry to explain why they didn’t have the requisite information.
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“The Central Public Information officer (CPIO) NIC also should explain that when in the website it is mentioned that Aarogya Setu Platform is designed, developed and hosted by National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India, then how is it that they do not have any information about creation of the App,” she said.
The Information Commissioner was hearing the plea of one Saurav Das who had sought to know from the government details about the creation of Aarogya Setu application, the law under which it is functioning and whether the government was planning to bring a separate law about the handling of data collected by the application. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) did not provide any information, prompting Das to file a complaint under the RTI Act. He had filed a similar application before the NIC which responded by saying it did not have any information.
During the hearing before the Commission, Das said the response of the NIC was surprising, as NIC is the developer of the application. He also said the ministry also did not provide any information relating to the mobile application’s creation and other matters. He told the Commission that many credible media reports have questioned the Aarogya Setu application, its making and handling, which makes it “of utmost importance” to bring transparency in the creation and handling of this application, which collects vast amounts of user and personal data of individuals.
After hearing the submissions of ministry officials, Sarna noted that ultimately the steps taken till today failed to locate the source from where information can be accessed. “None of the CPIOs were able to explain anything regarding who created the application, where are the files, and the same is extremely preposterous,” she said.
Current issue
The Commission observes that it is a current issue and it is not possible that there was no file movement while creating this App. “A citizen cannot go round in circles to find out the custodian,” Sarna said.
“The CPIO, NIC’s submissions that the entire file related to creation of the App is not with NIC is understandable, but the same submissions if accepted from MeITY, NeGD and NIC in toto, then it becomes more relevant to now find out how an App was created and there is no information with any of the relevant public authorities,” she said.
“Therefore, the Commission directs the CPIO, NIC to explain this matter in writing as to how the website https://ift.tt/31MDNfK was created with the domain name “http://gov.in”gov.in, if they do not have any information about it,” Sarna ordered.
The Information Commissioner issued a show cause notice to four officials -- Deputy Directors MeitY SK Tyagi and DK Sagar, Senior General Manager National E-Governance Division RA Dhawan and CPIO NIC Swarup Dutta.
“The addressees cannot simply wash their hands off by stating that the information is not available with them. Some effort should have been put in to find out the custodian(s) of the information sought, by the concerned public authorities when apparently they are the relevant parties,” she said.
She directed the officers to appear before the Commission to explain why a penalty under the RTI Act not be imposed on them.
Government response
The Aarogya Setu app has been developed in the most transparent manner, the Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology said on Wednesday after the Central Information Commission issued a notice to the government over who created the app.
“On all such occasions, it has been clearly mentioned that the Aarogya Setu App has been developed by NIC in collaboration with volunteers from Industry and Academia. Aarogya Setu app has been developed in the most transparent manner,” the ministry said in a statement. It added, “As was announced through Press Releases and Social Media posts on 2nd April 2020, Aarogya Setu App was launched by Government of India in public private partnership mode to bring people of India together in its fight against COVID-19.”
“The Aarogya Setu App was developed in a record time of around 21 days, to respond to the exigencies of the Pandemic with Lockdown restrictions only for the objective of building a Made in India Contact Tracing App with the best of Indian minds from Industry, Academia and Government, working round the clock to build a robust, scalable and secure App.”
The Ministry said that the app has been developed in a collaborative effort by the government and the private sector and has been downloaded by more than 16.23 crore users and has greatly augmented the efforts of frontline health workers in the fight against COVID-19.
What is the Aarogya Setu app?
The Aarogya Setu App is used for contact tracing to fight COVID-19. Launched on April 2, 2020 it became the world’s fastest app to reach 50 million downloads in just 13 days.
Using the phone’s Bluetooth and GPS facilities, Aarogya Setu is designed to keep track of other app users that a person comes in contact with. It then alerts app users if any of the contacts test positive for COVID-19. The App was designed by MyGovIndia, and has over 161 million users, identified over 3,500 hotspots. It has traced millions of people till now.
It also uses a GPS log of all the places that the device has been at 15-minute intervals. These records are stored on the phone till the time any user tests positive or declares symptoms of COVID-19 in a self-assessment survey in the app. In such cases, the records are uploaded to the servers.
Experts have raised concerns about the privacy of the application. Critics say that Arogya Setu, and applications like Sahyog that link to it, could infringe privacy as there was no clarity on how data would be shared between the two applications.
Active users plummet: MyGov CEO
Due to pandemic fatigue, the number of people checking the Aarogya Setu App has come down, according to Abhishek Singh, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at MyGov and Digital India Corporation.
“People have become lethargic, the number of people checking the Aarogya Setu App has come down. We are carrying out campaigns to get people to start using it again,” Singh said, but refused to attribute it to lack of trust due to privacy concerns.
He added, “We have been asking airlines and cinema halls to use the open API based mechanism and consent based sharing mechanism. This should be used in Metro also, otherwise when the cases increase, we will have a bigger problem. People will have to start becoming vigilant and start using the App.”
“Contact tracing and identification of emerging hotspots has been helpful in ensuring that we are able to control the pandemic. Maybe this is one of the reasons due to which our fatality rate is low. The App also optimises the testing capacity in a more targeted manner,” Singh said.
Limitations
He further said that the application has been successful in terms of health monitoring but there are limitations.
“Not everybody has the App or have given their correct mobile numbers. The App is being used only by less than 20 per cent of the population. To that extent, the App has been able to serve the purpose and give out the data of the potential hotspots.”
“In India, another limitation is that there are only 500 million smartphone users. Those who do not have the app are traced manually by the health authorities. This App thereby shows just a statistical sampling based on which we get some indications,” Singh said.
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