In the event you download Aarogya Setu?
This week of the pandemic has focused drastically on around Aarogya Setu and contact tracing. So much in order that during his speech extending the lockdown, PM Modi urged persons to download the app.
The theory is for the federal government to use the iphone app to know what your location is and who you have been around in contact with, enabling contact tracing.
The app’s privacy policy has been under fire since its release and has been updated recently with improved protections. Because the app is to be used for contact tracing together with quarantine enforcement, it will collect huge amounts of personal and sensitive data. For example, registering to the iphone app requires you to put in your name, age, gender, contact number, and profession.
When you have registered, the iphone app will start to use Bluetooth to check on who you have been in contact with. If you happen to test positive, the info might come in handy to notify people and also require also been infected. However, the Bluetooth itself will not give away your location.
Just how it works is if the Bluetooth on your own phone detects another phone in range, the pair will exchange keys and keep a record of the interaction.
The app will use the GPS inbuilt on your phone to monitor where you are, enabling it to determine whether you are sticking with the quarantine with significant accuracy. The phone will take note of where you are every a quarter-hour and only share the info with the federal government server if you test positive.
Normally, you'll have found the info collected by the iphone app to be extremely invasive. But then again, they are not normal times. You will make the argument that the measures are essential and proportional.
There are a few technical shortcomings and slightly concerning macro trends with the concept. Firstly, the consumption of Bluetooth. Bluetooth is fairly trustworthy over 6 ft (typical for physical distancing). However, the same things that stop coronavirus from spreading usually do not connect with Bluetooth. As put by Casey Newton, Bluetooth can recognise two devices kept 10 ft and a flat wall apart while the coronavirus may not transmit through walls.
Situations like they are likely to cause a lot of false positives. Secondly, the context here matters. India faces different challenges when compared with the developed world. Earlier this month, when Apple and Google came up with the idea to permit contact tracing, it resulted in a good amount of debate around wealth distribution being strongly correlated with OS distribution.
The theory is that if you wished to check where in the world wealth was concentrated, you could look at a map of iOS users around the world. Android, alternatively, runs on much more smartphones than iOS, rather than all of them have Bluetooth-LE, which is required to permit contact tracing. Here, it's the poor who lose out.
In India’s case, the indegent currently miss out because they own feature phones and not smartphones. While Medianama reports that the federal government is working on a feature phone version of the app, the indegent will continue steadily to remain at a disadvantage until it really is released.
Should you download the app? Yes. The updated online privacy policy is a marked improvement after the prior one. Most data collected by the iphone app is stored on the device locally or thirty days, after which it is deleted. Data that is shared with the Government will be deleted after 45 days.
However, in case you are unfortunate enough to check positive, the information distributed to the Government will be deleted 8 weeks after the individual is cured.
Broadly speaking, this policy is a step towards better data management practices. While protections might have been made better through open sourcing the app and disclosing the encryption, the current version of the app is reasonable in its approach and mandate. Moreover, perhaps, in last week’s column, I made the point that the liberties we quit today may wrap up becoming typical tomorrow.
This very much pertains to Aarogya Setu. Despite having an updated online privacy policy, in regular times, the iphone app would have been considered invasive to personal privacy.
The hallmark of an excellent policy/programme is that it ceases to exist once it has achieved its goal. What the iphone app does need is an end date in order that it generally does not inadvertently set a new normal. This also applies to measures such as facial recognition techniques being used to enforce quarantines as well as any other signifies that collect, store or process data.
The pandemic will hopefully come to an end sometime. Keeping that at heart, so if the technology measures that are being used to contain it. For the reason that regard, Aarogya Setu should lead just how. A fresh, worse normal in privacy may be the very last thing the world needs.
