New Delhi: In a shocking revelation, the National Informatics Centre, (NIC) which creates government websites and Apps has said that it has no information about of Aarogya Setu app and how it was created. Replying to a RTI petition, the NIC has claimed to have no clue of the Arogya Setu App to the Chief Information Commission (CIC) which has pulled up the NIC, seeking explantion.
New Delhi: In a shocking revelation, the National Informatics Centre, (NIC) which creates government websites and Apps has said that it has no information about of Aarogya Setu app and how it was created. Replying to a RTI petition, the NIC has claimed to have no clue of the Arogya Setu App to the Chief Information Commission (CIC) which has pulled up the NIC, seeking explanation.
CIC comes under the Ministry of Electronics issued a showcause notice to various chief public information officers asking them to provide a reply to an RTI application which questioned about the Covid-19 contact tracing App. The reply can’t be evasive, the CIC has said, according to HT.
Swiftly backing up the NIC, Abhishek Singh, CEO of MyGov and Digital India Corporation clarified on Tuesday that there is no confusion over who created the Aarogya Setu application, as NIC and the Ministry have made it along with the private partnership,
The issue has come to light after a RTI petition was filed by Saurav Das who claimed to have approached the NIC, National E-Governance Division (NeGD) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology seeking details of the application, which has been downloaded by millions of Indians during lockdown. But the RTI petitioner said that neither NIC nor the Ministry had data regarding the App.
“The Commission directs the CPIO, NIC to explain this matter in writing as to how the website https://aarogyasetu.gov.in/ was created with the domain name gov.in, if they do not have any information about it,” Information Commissioner Vanaja N Sarna has ordered.
The CIC noted that not only the about the creation of the app, nobody“seems to have” any knowledge about the files created, the inputs received, audit measures taken to check whether personal data are being misused or not, as reported in HT.
It may be recalled that concerns over the app and its security aspects was raised by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who then tweeted questioning data security. "Arogya Setu app, is a sophisticated surveillance system, outsourced to a pvt operator, with no institutional oversight - raising serious data security & privacy concerns. Technology can help keep us safe; but fear must not be leveraged to track citizens without their consent", he tweeted.
Refuting his allegations, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asserted that the App has not been outsourced to any private operator. However, Abhishek Singh, CEO of MyGov and Digital India Corporation has confirmed of private partnership. A clarification note will be issued soon, he added.