Aarogya Setu app may be breaking records on app stores but it’s privacy concerns have surely raised some questions. Now, the world’s top engineering college Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has red-flagged the app. This comes after a French ethical hacker showed the vulnerabilities of the app.
In it’s MIT Technology Review the institute has downgraded the app which the government is pushing for. The researchers at MIT downgraded the app rating to 1 star out of five from an earlier rating of 2. The review highlighted a serious concern as well.
As per the review app lost points on the parameters of “data minimization” which implies that it is collecting more data than required. Though recently the government said that it is not mandatory it has been making it mandatory for most of the things. The recent example is mandatoriness for the passengers for flights starting from 25th May.
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Apart from privacy questions have been raised on the efficacy of the app as well. Experts say that the app confuses in making alerts to the user. Say for example in a building if two persons are affected living on different floors the app would generate alert but can’t distinguish the affected one from the non-affected. The tracing and tracking apps are also made by other countries but none of the democratic governments is forcing like India on it’ citizens.
