The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued new data access and knowledge sharing protocols for Aarogya Setu, the government’s contact-tracing application.
The notifications come at a time when both users and privacy advocates have raised privacy concerns around the app. While the government has repeatedly said that the app doesn’t put user data at risk, the new protocols may raise more concerns.
Particularly, under the “principles of sharing of response data", the document states that response data “containing personal data" may be shared with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, Departments of Health of the State/Union Territory Governments/ local governments, National Disaster