India's contact tracing app, Arogya Setu has reached 100 million users in 41 days.
A representative at think-tank NITI Aayog told TechCrunch that this 100 million figure represents unique users — and not just those who had merely downloaded the app.
The app is available on Android and iOS and allows people to self-assess whether they are infected by the disease by answering a set of simple questions. It then uses this information to alert users if they have come in contact with someone who might be infected.
But the app has also raised concerns regarding privacy from privacy advocates and security researchers. The app stores location data of users when they sign up and logs details of those who have reported facing symptoms of the disease.
Ajay Prakash Sawhney, secretary in the ministry of electronics and information technology, was reported saying that the government has not made the source code of Aarogya Setu public because it feared many will point to flaws in it code and overburden the staff overseeing the app’s development.
“If I open up my source code, and say, some 50,000 people start criticizing it, raising issues every day, we will have to spend too much time reacting to those. We might do that for all in due course, but right now we are planning to open it up to some of the top cybersecurity experts in the country,” he stated.
Unlike Singapore's contact tracing app TraceTogether, Arogya Setu retains the flexibility to do just that, or to ensure compliance of legal orders and so on, according to New Delhi-based digital rights advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation.
“Aarogya Setu is an important step in our fight against COVID-19. By leveraging technology, it provides important information. As more and more people use it, its effectiveness will increase. I urge all to download it,” a quote attributed to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears on the homepage of the app.
Despite stringent lockdown the confirmed caseload in India has risen to 71,600, with about 2,320 confirmed deaths.