Amid privacy concerns, Centre makes Aarogya Setu app open source

In a bid to allay the privacy concerns regarding the Aarogya Setu app, the Centre on Tuesday announced it was making the mobile application open source, allowing researchers, experts and developers to understand how it works and the personal data processed through it.

The source code for the Android version of the application is available for review and collaboration on Github. The iOS version of the application will be released as open source within the next two weeks and the server code will be released subsequently, an official statement said.

Almost 98 per cent of Aarogya Setu users are on Android platform, it added.

"The key pillars of Aarogya Setu have been transparency, privacy and security and in line with India's policy on Open Source Software, the source code of Aarogya Setu has now been made open source," said the Electronics & IT Ministry statement.

It said that opening the source code to the developer community signifies the government's continuing commitment to the principles of transparency and collaboration.

"With the release of the source code in the public domain, we are looking to expanding collaboration and to leverage the expertise of top technical brains amongst the talented youth and citizens of our nation and to collectively build a robust and secure technology solution to help support the work of frontline health workers in fighting this pandemic together," the statement said.

The government has also announced a bug bounty program for the app, whereby the government will pay a cash price of Rs 1 lakh to any developer who finds bugs or loopholes in the application..