Indian court asks govt to reply over challenge to mandatory coronavirus app

A court asked the Indian government on Friday to respond to a challenge against its order for compulsory use of a contact-tracing app by public and private sector employees returning to work.

Last month, India launched the Aarogya Setu – or ‘Health Bridge’ – app. Downloaded to the phones of 94 million Indians, it makes use of Bluetooth and GPS to alert users who may have encountered people who later test positive for the virus.

However, mandatory use of the app forces a user to “give away data to a system which [they] may or may not approve of, thereby attacking [their] right of informational autonomy,” a member of the opposition Congress party said, in a petition to the high court in the southern state of Kerala, according to Reuters.

The government in New Delhi has said the app will not infringe privacy, as data is collected anonymously.