App for one season: on Centre’s regulation to utilize Arogya Setu

The Centre’s nationwide instruction for the mandatory usage of its contact tracing app, Aarogya Setu, as part of its COVID-19 fight steps, falls short of recognized legal requirements for the protection of privacy. The first requirement laid down by the Supreme Court in K.S. Puttaswamy, specifically, a law authorising the involuntary use of such an app, has actually not been satisfied. The federal government has no power to make the app’s usage compulsory without legal authorisation. There is no legislative guidance for the app’s purpose, working, and the nature of using the delicate personal information it collects. Passing the instruction issued under the Catastrophe Management Act, all people residing in ‘containment zones’, all government and public sector personnel and all employees, both public and private, who are permitted to work during the lockdown, will have to do