NEW DELHI : In mid-March, at least two government teams in different parts of the country started ideating on how they could use digital technology to fight the fast-spreading pandemic.
They reviewed international examples. Consulted experts. Got collaborators. One of those efforts morphed into the central government’s Aarogya Setu project.
The other team’s idea turned into the Mahakavach app, which the Maharashtra government has started using to monitor home-quarantined individuals.
While the slated objective of both these public health apps is to tackle covid-19, they arrived at radically different solutions, with different interpretations on privacy and consent.