India’s first COVID tracing app, Aarogya Setu resumes its services after users report login issues. Some users on Tuesday had reported that they were unable to log in due to some technical error. The developers were quick to rectify the error and announced that the services of the app has gone back to being normal.“Setu is back!!” The Twitter handle of Aarogya Setu posted after the glitch was rectified.
Informing the users about the glitch, Aarogya Setu had earlier tweeted from their official handle, “Some users have reported login errors on #AarogyaSetu. Our technical teams are on the job. We will be back soon. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
In another tweet, Aarogya Setu ensured that all user data is safe. “The tech teams ensured that Setu is back to doing what it does the best - Keeping You Safe!! And yes, all user data is safe!!,” the twitter handle of the app tweeted.
Incidentally, the snag in the Aarogya Setu app appears a day after the Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, UC Browser and others due to some security and privacy reasons
Coming back to COVID-tracing apps, Google and Apple have updated their phones and software with an inbuilt exposure notification tool that can be used to track Covid-19 patients, and their contacts. However, to use the tool you will have to install an authorized app by the government that can send Exposure Notifications
The government of India has its own COVID tracing app, Aarogya Setu but that it is incompatible with the Google-Apple API for contact tracing and therefore the feature available in the smartphones cannot be used now. There are a couple of differences in Google-Apple’s API and the Setu App. The feature by Google and Apple allows contact tracing apps to use Bluetooth to make the contact tracing more effective whereas the Aarogya Setu requires information such as the location of users and their contacts for contact tracing to work effectively.
Google and Apple on the other hand are not in favour of collecting the location details of the users for contact tracing because the APIs for this feature are designed to collect data anonymously and create random IDs, which are exchanged with other devices to facilitate contact tracing. So as far as policies are concerned, Google-Apple and Aarogya Setu are not on the same page. Setu app can’t use Google-Apple API unless it is modified by the government and approved by Google and Apple.