Home Ministry directs all government, private employees to download Aarogya Setu app; Rahul Gandhi calls it sophisticated surveillance system
2 May, 2020 | newsx bureau
The Centre has directed all private companies and the government organisations to achieve 100 % compliance on the use of Aarogya Setu by their employees.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, in its latest guidelines, made Aarogya Setu app, which helps in self coronavirus testing and provides all the necessary information related to the virus, mandatory for all government and private employees. A day ago, the Centre extended nationwide lockdown for next two weeks starting May 4.
The Centre has directed all private companies and the government organisations to achieve 100 % compliance on the use of Aarogya Setu by their employees.
“The use of Aarogya Setu app shall be made mandatory for all employees, both private and public. It shall be the responsibility of the head of the respective organisations to ensure 100 per cent coverage of this app among the employees,” said Ministry.
Responding to the government’s announcement, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi called it sophisticated surveillance system.
“The Arogya Setu app, is a sophisticated surveillance system, outsourced to a pvt operator, with no institutional oversight – raising serious data security & privacy concerns. Technology can help keep us safe; but fear must not be leveraged to track citizens without their consent,” Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet.
The opposition said use of GPS-based location data is a major concern.
While the NITI Aayog said with the help of GPS, government may mark new coronavirus hotspots and can the information can be shared easily.
An official stated that the location individual basis data would not be used, but it will be used on aggregated basis.