Lok Sabha Question No. 2633 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-03-10
Subject: Aarogya Setu App
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Gaurav Gogoi

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.2633

TO BE ANSWERED ON 10.03.2021

## AAROGYA SETU APP

## 2633 SHRI GAURAV GOGOI:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY   be pleased to State:

- (a) the data on the total number of downloads of the Aarogya Setu app State/UT-wise;
- (b) whether  the Government can provide data on the success of Aarogya Setu app on the lines of quantification of success of such contract tracking apps by many countries;
- (c) if so, the details thereof;
- (d) the details of the maker of the app and data privacy practices  followed  thereunder; and
- (e) whether the government can provide  details of government involvement and usage of the domain gov.in for the Aarogya Setu app and if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR  ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI SANJAY  DHOTRE)

- (a): Yes, Sir. Aarogya Setu has 17.05 Cr. registered users. The state wise break-up of the users is attached in Annexure I.
- (a) and (c): Yes, Sir.  In a country with more than a billion people, testing (for COVID19) of the entire population is a humongous task. The testing of the individuals (who are at risk of infection) is something which needs to be done at the early stage and such individuals need to be quarantined so as to prevent the transmission of the infection to other people. Here Aarogya Setu played a key role by identifying the individuals of high risk at an early stage, thereby prioritizing their testing, and for taking necessary medical and administrative measures. Aarogya Setu has helped in identifying more than 1.00 Cr. individuals (at risk) through contact tracing. The positivity rate of Aarogya Setu is currently around 25%, which means that 25% of Aarogya Setu users (identified at risk through contact tracing) turned out to be COVID19 positive, when tested for Covid-19.
- (d): Yes, Sir. The App has been developed by National Informatics Centre. Aarogya Setu has been developed with 'privacy-first by design' as a key principle. Aarogya Setu has implemented some of the best and widely accepted privacy features and practices, including anonymization, data minimization, purpose & use limitation and data retention principles. The key privacy practices followed by the App are :
- i. Personal information provided at the time of registration is immediately anonymized and all subsequent transactions are related to a specific Device Identification Number (DiD) that is assigned to the user by the Aarogya Setu server.
- ii. By default, all contact tracing and location information that is collected, is stored locally on the user's mobile device. This information is only uploaded to the Aarogya Setu server if the user tests positive for COVID-19. The location information is also recorded when the user takes the self-assessment and it is sent to the server along with the user's response to self-assessment.
- iii. All contact tracing and location information is stored on the user mobile device and not uploaded to the Aarogya Setu servers and is permanently deleted from the phone on a rolling 30-day cycle. All the contact tracing and location information that might have been uploaded to the Aarogya Setu server is permanently deleted after 45 days from the date of upload if the user has not tested positive for COVID-19 within that period of time. If the user is infected, all contact tracing and location information pertaining to the user is permanently deleted from the server after 60 days after the user is declared cured of COVID-19.
- iv. Further, the privacy policy explicitly limits the purposes for which this data will be used i.e. only for assisting the user and generating insights to help the Government of India in its COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
- (e):   The App has been developed by NIC and the ownership of the Aarogya Setu rests with NIC under MeitY. The website 'aarogyasetu.gov.in' is also developed by NIC. As the Aarogya Setu is owned by Government, the website for Aarogya Setu has been registered with 'gov.in' domain.

*******

## States/UTs wise total number of downloads

| Geo_State         |    Count |
|-------------------|----------|
| Andaman &Nicobar  |    66003 |
| Andhra Pradesh    |  6585668 |
| Arunachal Pradesh |   190473 |
| Assam             |  1758160 |
| Bihar             |  8048790 |
| Chandigarh        |   557943 |
| Chhattisgarh      |  2519638 |
| Dadra &Nagar Have |   148829 |
| Daman &Diu        |    99023 |
| Delhi             |  8580861 |
| Goa               |   510920 |
| Gujarat           |  8984196 |
| Haryana           |  6756916 |
| Himachal Pradesh  |  1559238 |
| Jammu &Kashmir    |  1267380 |
| Jharkhand         |  2946895 |
| Karnataka         |  9302512 |
| Kerala            |  2137293 |
| Ladakh            |    76934 |
| Lakshadweep       |     1981 |
| Madhya Pradesh    |  7442708 |
| Maharashtra       | 19367364 |
| Manipur           |   162069 |
| Meghalaya         |   140193 |
| Mizoram           |    61247 |
| Nagaland          |   137086 |
| Odisha            |  2909471 |
| Puducherry        |   138949 |
| Punjab            |  3459584 |
| Rajasthan         |  7472629 |

## Annexure I

| Sikkim        |   165244 |
|---------------|----------|
| Tamil Nadu    |  5110133 |
| Telangana     |  5407787 |
| Tripura       |   275631 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 23702046 |
| Uttarakhand   |  2276842 |
| West Bengal   |  6986278 |

Note: Some users have not provided their location information. So the counts of such users are not included in the detailed state wise breakup.

********