Usability and privacy issues in government-issued Covid-19 apps in India

A slew of mobile apps were released by different government bodies in India as a response to the Covid-19 outbreak. State and UT governments released apps for the purposes of quarantine management, ensuring compliance to quarantine rules, providing healthcare information and updates, and so on. Public health being a subject on the State List, the federal governments were the first to respond to the outbreak with technical interventions, much before the Aarogya Setu app was released. While Aarogya Setu has received much attention, the apps issued by state and UT governments in India have posed their own technical, privacy and usability issues. In this talk, Rohini Lakshané will speak about her findings from a preliminary analysis of approximately twenty government-issued Covid-19 apps from the perspective of privacy and usability of the end-user and will take the audience through a brief timeline of their deployment and subsequent events.

Suggested reading:
Tracking quarantine, tracing cases, sharing info: Can these govt-issued apps help fight Covid-19 https://citizenmatters.in/tracking-quarantine-tracing-cases-sharing-info-can-these-govt-issued-apps-help-fight-covid-19-17151