Ajay Sawhney, chairman of Empowered Group-9, on Monday said that Aarogya Setu app has been downloaded in 9.8 crore smartphones so far.
“It will be available on Jio feature phones, maybe from tomorrow. We have worked a lot on data privacy of Aarogya Setu users and made sure that user’s data is not compromised,” said Sawhney during a press briefing in New Delhi.
He also informed that around 1.4 lakh Aarogya Setu app users have been alerted via Bluetooth contact tracing about the possible risk of infection due to proximity to infected patients.
“This will enable you to protect yourself and your family,” he added.
With an increase of 4,213 cases in the past 24 hours, India’s COVID-19 count reached 67,152 on Monday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The number of active cases in the country rose to 44,029, while 20,916 patients have been cured and discharged and one has migrated, according to the Ministry.
Separately, Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog, said Aarogya Setu mobile application is based on “privacy-first by design” principle keeping in mind the safety and privacy of users’ data. He added that the user data from the app would only be provided to those government officials who were directly in charge of containing the spread of the Coronavirus in India.
In an exclusive interaction with ANI, Kant informed that Aarogya Setu mobile application has been built to ensure privacy and security of personal information that was collected from people. It is based on “privacy-first by design” principle.
“Aarogya Setu has a clearly defined protocol for access to data. National Informatics Centre (NIC) is the fiduciary of the data, and data is only shared with government officials directly involved in COVID-19 related medical and administrative interventions on a strictly need-to-know basis and limited in scope only to their direct work,” said Kant.