Abstract

As the number of coronavirus infections increases in India, the central and state government has launched many apps for tracing those who have come in contact with confirmed patients. This raises concerns that such smartphone apps may trespass upon citizens‟ privacy. When the users download these apps, it requires a lot of permissions at the time of registration. These permission includes access to device location, phone, Device ID, photos, media files , storage etc. Giving these personnel data permissions is a matter of great concern, Therefore, it was necessary to scrutinize these apps. Apart from the AarogyaSetu app, we have also analysed the policy documents of 21 different State/UT applications. It is found that these apps seeks a lot of unnecessary permissions and in some apps there is a absence of the policy documents regarding the application. In some cases the privacy policy are there but its too short and unclear about the purpose for which the data collected will be used. Therefore, it is essential that the Legal frameworks must have transparency about what data needs to be collected from individuals, what permissions are actually required for these applications, and a legal obligation should be established to use such information only for the public health system .The privacy policy of these applications should be transparent enough about the dismantle of these data after the COVID-19 pandemic, so as to safeguard the users.

Description