Ever since the Arogya Setu App was developed to track the COViD19 cases in India, it has been downloaded by millions of people in the country. However, there have always been questions about the security of data that the app captures. In the latest, a French ethical hacker has claimed to expose several flaws with the Aadhaar app and posted a series of tweets warning of a “security issue”. The hacker, who goes by the name of Robert Baptiste, asked to be contacted in private to discuss the same.
Responding to his accusations, Arogya Setu issued a statement saying no personal information of any user has been proven to be at risk. The same has been backed up by the Government and the National Informatics Centre as well.
The app makers reiterated Aarogya Setu’s privacy policies which are accessible from the app itself. The app collects user location and stores them on the server which is said to be in a “secure, encrypted, anonymized manner”, the statement added.
Not pleased with the response, the hacker has warned the government that unless the breaches were fixed, he would make the flaws public, writing: “Putting the medical data of 90 million Indians (at risk) is not an option. I have very limited patience, so after a reasonable deadline, I will disclose it, fixed or not”.
Since its launch in March, the Central Government has made the Aarogya Setu app mandatory for all public and private sector employees. Everyone in a COVID-19 containment zone will also have to download the app. The center has set a target of achieving 30 crore app downloads in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 cases in India is nearing 50,000 with 1,694 deaths.
