Aarogya Setu contact tracing app in India is getting new feature this week. The developers have updated the app which allows people to delete their account from the database. This is possible when the users go to the settings on the app. They will have select the mobile number using which their account was created. Also Read - Apple, Google's 'Exposure Notification' API comes to India, but Aarogya Setu doesn't support it yet
As you can see here, the delete account option comes with certain conditions. Go to Settings on the side menu of the app, click on Delete My Account, put your registered mobile number and click on Delete Account. Before you delete the account, the app tells you what all information will be removed. Also Read - MobiKwik temporarily taken down from Google Play Store for promoting Aarogya Setu
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It says the user will permanently cancel their Aarogya Setu registration. They will erase app data on the phone. Having said that, it says the data from the government server will be erased after 30 days. This is the first time when we’re hearing about the option to delete the data for the user, if they wish to. Aarogya Setu has been developed with privacy policies that are not clear. Privacy critics from across the globe have questioned its purpose.
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To ease those concerns, the Indian government decided to host source code of the platform on GitHub. But many feel they need to do that for the server side as well. Aarogya Setu is available on iOS and Android. And as per the recent available data, the app has been downloaded by over 130 million users in the country.
Aarogya Setu misses Google-Apple notification API
US-based tech companies Apple and Google had recently been collaborating on the ‘exposure notification’ API for Android and iOS devices. The API was meant to work in countries that were heavily affected by the pandemic. It designed to work on one standard health and safety-oriented app in each country. In India, that was going to be the Aarogya Setu app. But the platform’s privacy and data policies don’t match with that of the API. Because of which the app is not compatible with the ‘Exposure Notification’ feature.
