'Daily a new lie': BJP counters Rahul's allegations on Aarogya Setu app

Union Minister for Law and Justice and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday (May 2) said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was coming out with a ‘new lie’ every day. He was responding to Rahul Gandhi’s reported statement that ‘Aarogya Setu’ was a sophisticated surveillance system.

“The Arogya Setu app, is a sophisticated surveillance system, outsourced to a private 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,” Gandhi wrote on Twitter.

Responding to Gandhi’s tweet, Prasad called it ‘a daily lie’ and asked him to stop outsourcing his tweets instead.

“Aarogya Setu is now being appreciated globally. The App is NOT outsourced to any private operator. Mr. Gandhi really high time that you stop outsourcing your tweets to your cronies who do not understand India,” Prasad tweeted.

He also said, Aarogya Setu is a powerful companion which protects people and that it has a robust data security architecture. “Those who indulged in surveillance all their lives, won’t know how tech can be leveraged for good”.

The Aarogya Setu application developed by the government helps people to assess themselves on the risk of their catching the coronavirus infection.

Related news: Aarogya setu beats Pokémon GO, becomes world’s fastest growing app

The mobile app which is available on both Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store uses location data to trace people who’ve come in close proximity with any COVID-19 positive patient. The application seeks access to location at all times. The app also shares safety measures and updated medical advisories about the novel coronavirus in 11 language.

The app became the world’s fastest-growing app with over 50 million users in 13 days of its launch and of these, 11 million users enrolled in a single day, according to the Niti Aayog team lead.