Was watching the news channel yesterday. Some guy had spit on the road. The police made him take off his shirt, and wipe it on the road thoroughly. If this wasn't enough, they made him do squats, while holding his ears, in the middle of the road in everyone's view. At some point, it turned from a punishment to simply humiliating someone just because you have that power.

> I would agree about privacy issues if the govt. asks citizens to use it even after this pandemic is done. In that case, I myself will go to the streets to fight.

This is just a guess of mine since I don't think we have seen any new devices coming with this app pre-installed, cause who's buying phones now. The app won't be easy to uninstall, and even if you can uninstall with adb or disable, how many people do you think will do that?

Even if the app is easy to uninstall, most people will forget to uninstall until specifically asked to do so. I have seen so many Indians still content with the Cheetah bloatware that often comes pre-installed, oblivious to the fact that they are utterly useless.

> The mobile number part concerns me. Government wants to use it as a way to contact people but the potential for abuse is there

>What abuse are you talking about?

Do you remember the adhaar database leak? How much confidence do you have in our government's security measures?

A minor nitpick. It’s “leaks”, not leak. There have been many over the years.

No system is 100% secure, and talking about it like that makes them look like clowns.

But the data is with the government already, and as per their terms of service can be stored forever, and for any purpose they wish (as long as its a "legal requirement").

"“The personal information collected will not be used for any purpose other than those mentioned in this Clause 2 save as required in order to comply with a legal requirement.”

"All personal information collected from you under Clause 1(a) provided at the time of registration will be retained for as long as your account remains in existence and for such period thereafter as required for the purposes for which the information may lawfully be used or is otherwise required under any other law for the time being in force"

https://www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Aarogya-Setu-Pr...

The government has already changed the privacy policy without notification, and for sure they can change it again and nobody - especially not a compliant judiciary - will stop them.

Not according to this article : https://www.news18.com/news/tech/aarogya-setu-registration-w...

> According to officials with knowledge of the matter, the government of India is making it mandatory for all new smartphones to be sold in India post lifting of the lockdown to not just have the app as a pre-installed service, but also ensure that individuals register on it and set it up, before beginning to use their new smartphones. [...] This will make the Aarogya Setu app an inbuilt feature on all new smartphones, that will be sold in India going forward.

> About getting beaten or made to do situps, in my view, a far lesser punishment rather than charging and going the legal route. Than would be draconian.

I wonder why they are hostile? Could it maybe be because their civil liberties get massively infringed on a regular basis?

^This in addition with rumors spread among these sections,

Yeah, police force is a complex beast in India. Just like anywhere in the world.

Regarding civil liberties, can you specify why you have come to such a conclusion?

There are countless instances where police have infringed civil liberties, as well as countless instances where the police were ineffective.

> simply not enough personnel to do any contact tracing.

Those seem a bit contradictory, no? China also has over a billion people and managed to find the labor to perform contact tracing.

For examples has Nokia releases a protocol?

I wonder how those poor old phones will survive with it.

(I don't wish to engage more because I don't think you are looking for a good faith argument here because android app released by the government won't work on those Nokias and I don't see why you can't have two different appS with different level of efficiency because you will need two different apps regardless?)

For example, if government can order than Nokia release a privacy-harming contract-tracing feature, then the government can instead order that Nokia release a privacy-enhanced version based on the Google-Apple protocols instead (or any other better protocols people have developed).

It would be more effective for the pandemic too, because you want maximum interoperability.

And it would be more effective for the pandemic because you will get better compliance too. If people know they are 100% tracked with full transparency they are more motivated to find ways to cheat, especially when doing something "disapproved" (like seeing your secret lover), which is not good for countering the pandemic. People will definitely find ways to cheat the tracing if they are motivated.

There might be better protocols or specs available. But no one other that a doomsday cultist can afford the bodies to start piling up while doing nothing instead of doing something.

That wouldn't be much of a problem if the outbreak would've just started now (which is the reason contact tracing made sense for South Korea) but why would India, with it's huge population and probably similar real spread timeline benefit from it at this point? To me most of the world missed the small window of time when contact tracing makes sense and it is now a complete red herring.

By the way, why would you assume they would pull out the app after the lockdown? I mean, you could always argue that it will still be needed to make sure there's no second, or third outbreak. And then needed to make sure everyone got the vaccine (everyone should absolutely get the vaccine when it eventually comes out, my point here is that there will always be more reasons to extend the usage of surveillance tools like this), and then maybe keep the app to prevent future outbreaks. Where do you eventually draw the line? Who decides when the pandemic is over especially considering how likely it is that it will become a seasonal disease? There is literally no incentive for governments to eventually stop.

They don't even need to have malicious intentions, it can be to avoid a future outbreak of a new disease that is this severe. But that's the whole point, there's always a seemingly good reason to increase surveillance and the excuse is often that there is no alternative. Which may be true, but all governments, even the most dictatorial ones, don't directly say that they are taking your rights for no reason. It's always because of foreign spies, to fight terrorism, to protect the nation or the most often used excuse: to keep people safe.

Check at 50 secs. There is police commissioner there. And the guys still got killed over bunch of rumours.

Don't believe that the government or law enforcement is there to protect you.

Let's say the same one but put some privacy in place. Let's have full transparency about how the information is used. Maybe put a more privacy friendly law in place like GDPR. Something that keeps the govn in check.

Or another alternative: Use the Apple-Google approach and their APIs.

> What abuse are you talking about? With a first name and last name direct identification is a bit hard. With a unique number that is tied directly to an individual like the phone number... IDK... What can you do when you know exactly where everyone SPECIFICALLY has been or is right now. Maybe know that who lives with who? Maybe be able to deduce when ppl are cheating? Maybe be able to use this location data for extortion?

Make India a British colony again as of today? Seriously, do you think Gandhi would approve of this app?

If people need a translation: "Why did you fight for independence if you throw your freedoms away now?"