[am1m]

Originally Posted by Dsan

My employer has made it mandatory to have this app and another similar app(made by the employer) on all employees personal mobile phones.

Is this only because the employees are coming in to the office? Or do all employees, even if they are working from home need to have it installed? Any idea anyone?

[arindambasu13]

Originally Posted by am1m

Is this only because the employees are coming in to the office? Or do all employees, even if they are working from home need to have it installed? Any idea anyone?

It is mandatory for all employees attending office taking advantage of the 33 percentage workforce capacity rule. Employers are supposed to ensure that all such attending employees have downloaded the app. For the general populace, it is a recommendation from governement.

[Dsan]

Originally Posted by am1m

Is this only because the employees are coming in to the office? Or do all employees, even if they are working from home need to have it installed? Any idea anyone?

Requirement of govt of india to have it on phones of all personals, all establishments will check this app at the entry gates.

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

Going by the responses, there should be a third option. Those who don’t want to use the app but are being compelled to use it (mandatory for office etc).

Agree, wish the TBHP poll offered a layered poll system with all "Yes, because of xxxxx" multiple affirmative options being collated into one category and likewise for "No, because of xxxxx" in the other. Currently, unless I am mistaken you have to add up yourself which is a pain.

Originally Posted by m8002?

I am now forced to install at office

Originally Posted by luvDriving

A couple of days later while I was swiping the screen, there it was sitting on the last page already installed. Now no one in my house installs stuff on my phone. I certainly did not install it. So I am assuming it was push installed. So there.

Weird. Is it Android or iOS and is your device policies controlled by your office due to work-related security restrictions?

Originally Posted by am1m

Is this only because the employees are coming in to the office? Or do all employees, even if they are working from home need to have it installed? Any idea anyone?

As Arindam has pointed out, only those attending office needs to do so.

Originally Posted by arindambasu13

It is mandatory for all employees attending office taking advantage of the 33 percentage workforce capacity rule.

I am part of the Compliance committee in my MNC and we are denying entry to all employees without this app. No exceptions - if they do not wish to install and their line manager does not agree to WFH, they have been marked on leave immediately. Security has been rigorously trained to confirm the active status on the screen before allowing entry.

I understand our FMS provider who runs our business complex will take on this task from next week and bar entry at the entrance gate itself.

Till such time it is challenged in the honourable SC or modified by GoI, it is the law of the land, and no blue-chip CEO is going to take the chance of his/her employees entering workplaces without it.

[luvDriving]

Originally Posted by itwasntme

Agree, wish the TBHP poll offered a layered poll system with all "Yes, because of xxxxx" multiple affirmative options being collated into one category and likewise for "No, because of xxxxx" in the other. Currently, unless I am mistaken you have to add up yourself which is a pain.


Weird. Is it Android or iOS and is your device policies controlled by your office due to work-related security restrictions?
.

Agree to having another option in the poll. Mine is an android phone and it's policies are not controlled by my office. I have the regular communication apps as mandated by my office.

It is weird for sure because none of my colleagues had it pushed to their phones.

[srishiva]

I dont intend to go to office. Hence, have voted 'no' for now ! The data can be misused. But that is not the reason for not using it. Being confined to home, I dont think I need it. It might still be useful since delivery people are visiting and will be useful to know the people who you came near you.

Does this work across millions of users ? Is this working on the user's phone or is there some data crunching happening at a central location ?

[fhdowntheline]

I wonder how they are going to mandate 100% use of the app in the containment zones? People will tell the govt, I don't have a phone, give me one if you want to keep tabs on my movement!

[praveen789]

I voted No. If the government wants transparency of my whereabouts and track me, they should also come up with an app or share data on how many hospital beds are available, how many ventilators are being produced daily and what other measures are being taken to improve the medical situation apart from just aimlessly extending the lock down.

I am sure such an app can be made mandatory for all hospitals which will give a real time idea of the situation. Only tracking the patients is illogical if not backed by data of whether we have enough infra to handle them.

[moralfibre]

I don't have much to say about Aarogya Setu app. Especially the pros and cons of having it. If one knows how to right size an app's permissions with least privilege method, they'd know how to protect their privacy and data. A lot more apps in your smartphone are sending data across to unverified / insecure sources and there are leaks round the year. But that's not the point of my post either.


I read someone mentioning China and their mass surveillance systems on their citizens. Whether it's good or bad is not a debate one can have in China atleast. The govt makes rules and the citizens follow it. Dissent can have breakfast at Tiananmen square.

There was a very very insightful post I had come across on Facebook from a person who had his wife in China share some really really useful ways in which the govt contained the virus and I'm reproducing it here:

Link: https://www.facebook.com/narayan/pos...57544408394017

Having a ringside view of the coronavirus situation has been instructive in several ways. I am among the few that happen to have a window into how this has unfolded in China (thanks to having a wife in Shanghai who has provided frequent snapshots into events there) and a Facebook tab on my browser that lets me share it. I figured some of you out there may be interested in what I've seen.

There is much talk today about the lack of transparency and the confused messaging from the US government today. The Chinese were equally reticent at first. It seems like denial is a universal knee-jerk reaction when faced with such situations. It is well known now that the doctor who first alerted the authorities to what appeared to be a new threat was told to shut up and go away. The Chinese outgrew denial but it seems we have to learn that lesson all over again.

Once they realized that concealment wasn't working, they started a daily update that looked like the map below: every day, you got an update on the total number of infections (with a second number indicating how many more were infected since yesterday), the total number of people who had succumbed to the disease so far (with a similar update on how many more since yesterday), the total number of suspected cases, and the total number of people who had survived. Although this level of transparency is reassuring, it is not clear how useful it would be until you began to see the tide turn. (I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers weren't all entirely accurate.)

The use of technology was also pretty stunning. My wife had an app on her phone that showed how far she was at any given moment from known cases of infection. I'm not sure what I would do if I had a screen on my phone that shows the nearest cases are "1.02km", "1.72km", ... away from my current location. Again, this feels like information that ought to be useful but I'm not sure if it is really as useful as it appears to be.

Perhaps the most jaw-dropping bit was the color-coded QR code. I don't think anyone knew how deeply the Chinese surveillance state reached into the lives of its citizenry until now. Because of this outbreak, they have had to "repurpose" that machinery to impose a quarantine on tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of their citizens. The green color of the QR code on my wife's phone says that she hasn't been to any place where she may have been infected. The QR-code says the same to machines that can read that and decide whether she is allowed access into any building. This is connected to her ID, which, along with facial recognition, can place her anywhere and update that code if she strays off the "green" path. It also determines which car in the subway she rides. For a while, each family had a card that allowed one member of each household to go out of their community once a day.

This machinery is -- and I mean this sincerely -- awesome and -- yes, I also mean this -- awful. I have a feeling that we in this country are soon going to have to decide where we fall in this awesome-awful spectrum. We may really have to come to terms with the fact that individuals making decisions with nothing more than their self-interest in mind can make things much, much worse.

The Chinese government appears to have thrown everything they have at this problem. They realized early that their system would be overwhelmed if the disease spread unchecked. They understood the nature of exponential growth (see the brilliant video by 3Blue1Brown below) so they did everything they had to do stall the spread, buying time to build the infrastructure needed. (Btw, the Italians seem to have seen what the Chinese did and decided to follow that model.)

In the worst case, I'm afraid this virus is going to sweep through all connected communities (and in this age, this means practically the entire population of the world) and take its toll. By slowing it down, we may be able to buy the time to develop everything that is necessary (testing kits, temporary hospitals, vaccines, cures, ...) to come through this with minimal damage.

For now, it really does seem to come down to a few simple things. Avoid crowded places, try not to touch your face, wash your hands frequently (because you know you can't remember to not touch your face), and take extra care of your elderly because they appear to be the most vulnerable.

I just wish we had a pilot whom we could trust when he says "I'm going to leave the seatbelt sign on for a bit, folks ... it's going to be a bumpy ride for a bit."

https://Youtu.be/Kas0tIxDvrg

[sharktale]

I've voted "Yes".

While I am a general advocate for security and privacy, I feel that I can definitely grant the govt. limited-time access to my phone.

I am currently inside a containment zone area in Kolkata. Whatever stories/rumours one might be hearing, AFAIK they are probably true.

The state govt.'s approach has been really weird. Had it not been for the Central Teams and constant rebuking by Central Govt. one could be rest assured that our entire state would have been declared Corona-free. No-testing=No-Positives!

Nonetheless, this post isn't a rant on the effectiveness of the SG / CG but about AarogyaSetu. I have installed it because I really want the government to track my movements and try and alert me whenever possible. Safety of my life and my loved ones is of paramount importance to me currently than the privacy of my movements. Once this issue ends, I am going to clean (digitally) my phone and try my best to remove any sort of data trackers installed by this app. I believe in the philosophy, "If they really wanted to track you, they already probably are!".

The app says that the data is stored locally unless there is an action reported by me itself. I am going to trust them on this.



Yes, the app is more or less based on self-assessments and self-declarations and one can also be sure of people under-reporting incident/co-morbidities. I think that this is one of the most reliable methods for me in present circumstances to get information straight from the horse's mouth.

I honestly feel that the govt. and police have been really sketchy in sharing details and information about Covid+ patients found nearby to neighbours.

Creating panic would have definitely helped more people stay indoors, but it is not on the agenda list of our hallowed authorities.

[Nav-i-gator]

I voted yes. I have installed it. Don't think it will help anyone, but neither I think it's a breach of privacy issue. Location services for most of the people are already on for some or most of the apps already installed (Google maps, assistant, FB etc). Any apps like digi-wallets have permission to contacts, messages and even camera & Mic. Without our knowing, a lot of personal data on our location, movements etc is being tracked, stored and sold as well. Prone to cyber attacks? Sites/apps that store your card information (e-com sites, Netflix etc) and have access to your text messages (read OTP) can potentially be far more dangerous than apps just using location.

Last thing you need today is being overly paranoid. We give too much credit to the tech-savvyness of Govt. And if they are as smart, we probably are already under constant surveillance.

If a person is just staying at home or venturing out to nearby shops, office etc and not involved in any dubious activities, how does it affect you?

[bluevolt]

I have installed it just for the sake to analyse what the app does!

What is does is that it just sucks the juice out of the battery like anything!

My phone (S8+) usually requires a charge once a day. After I installed the app, I recharged my phone almost thrice a day!

The app is constantly using data, GPS, & Bluetooth. It even forces on the Bluetooth/GPS even if you ignore the warning message.

The self-assessment system of this app was introduced by Apollo and Govt just integrated that and made a surveillance system to be mandated (forced) to citizens!

[F150]

Voted No. I don't like this enforcement of an app which can store and reference your data with a unique identifier, forever. Other country apps have a dynamic identifier which changes with every session.

[nandrive]

Voted Yes.

Originally Posted by GTO

Sharing an amazing post from BHPian bj96 on another thread:

Could you tell me how many stand alone apps we have on our phones? All ecommerce apps, Uber,ola, chat, payment apps, name any need persistent network communication. So this is not something new.

I worry more about private companies than government. I am more worried about Google/Apple and mobile OEMs since they don't really need my permission to steal my data. They can sell my data to anyone. Infact any government can buy data from them. We are living in compromised world.

[praveen789]

Originally Posted by nandrive

Voted Yes.



Could you tell me how many stand alone apps we have on our phones? All ecommerce apps, Uber,ola, chat, payment apps, name any need persistent network communication. So this is not something new.

I worry more about private companies than government. I am more worried about Google/Apple and mobile OEMs since they don't really need my permission to steal my data. They can sell my data to anyone. Infact any government can buy data from them. We are living in compromised world.

The logic to compare with other apps might be tempting but not apt. Other apps are installed by the user voluntarily. They can uninstall at choice as well. They also offer some tangible use (social media, video calling, etc) whereas the Aarogya Setu app does not offer anything meaningful as of now. Adding things like e-pass in that app makes it look more dubious as you are forcing users to share all your data for permission to move around.

To put it in perspective - would you install any app (from any app developer) that says it will monitor your location every moment and save it (without offering any other feature)? If not, then why would we do it for the government?