Recently our Indian government has released its official COVID-19 tracker app named Arogya Setu to help in controlling the infection and has now become the world’s fastest app to cross 50 million downloads within 13 days. However, the maximum downloads within in a single day were 11 million after the prime minister urged people to download the app.
The development was informed by NITI Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant who quoted on Twitter that
“Telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users, radio 38 yrs, television 13 yrs, Internet 4 yrs, Facebook 19 months, Pokemon Go 19 days. #AarogyaSetu, India’s app to fight COVID-19 has reached 50 mn users in just 13 days-fastest ever globally for an App”.
Earlier the record was held by Nintendo’s popular Android game ‘Pokemon Go’ to get 50 million downloads within 19 days but now Arogya Setu has beaten the record to get 50 million downloads within 13 days.
Almost any COVID-19 app takes the converts personal data and location data and saves it within your device for two weeks. Whenever any user tests positive or is at high risk of infection then the data is uploaded to the server and whenever. If any person comes in the Bluetooth range that is up to 10 meters in most of the smartphones.
“Aarogya Setu gives each user a unique anonymous device identification on registration. The linking of the device identification to a mobile number is a one-time process and is then encrypted and secured in a server,” said Kumar
The information is not pushed into the server until the user is suspected of infection or comes positive. All the interaction between server and device is done under an encrypted and secure way. All the information is saved in the device for 30 days and data of non-risk users will be deleted from server within 45 days and any kind of vulnerability and security aspects will be addressed by the by a team from IIT-madras and a global tech-audit firm.
If a victim tests positive for COVID-19 his location data is used to map locations that he/she visited within the last 14 days to identify the hotspots and quickly sanitize them.
