India is aggressively pushing a state-backed contact tracing app to fight the spread of COVID-19, raising fears that the world’s second-most populous
nation is on its way to Chinese-style methods of high tech social control.
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has touted its app, Aarogya Setu, or “Health Bridge,” as a key tool in fighting the deadlycoronavirus. With more than 70,000 people already infected, the number of cases in India is expected to exceed China, the origin of the outbreak, within a week.
Like many apps being rolled out around the world, Aarogya Setu uses Bluetooth signals on smartphones to record when people come in close contact with one another, so that contacts can be quickly alerted when a person tests positive for COVID-19.
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But the Indian app also uses GPS location data to augment the information gathered via Bluetooth and build a centralized database of the spread of the infection -- an approach avoided by most countries for privacy reasons.
And it mimics China’s health QR code system with a feature that rates a person’s likely health status with green, orange or red colors, signifying whether the individual is safe, at high risk or a carrier of the virus.
On top of that, the federal government earlier this month made use of the app mandatory for all public and private sector employees returning to work as the world’s biggest lockdown eases -- drawing sharp criticism from digital rights’ advocates.

India to widen use of coronavirus tracing app, raising privacy concerns
Migrant workers, who were stranded in the western state of Gujarat due to a lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, wait to board a train at a railway station to leave for their home state of Uttar Pradesh, in Ahmedabad, India. (Reuters)
Reuters, New Delh
Thursday 14 May 2020
Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:58 - GMT 06:58
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