Of the 9.8 crore (98 million) users who have downloaded Aarogya Setu, "data of fewer than 13,000 people, including COVID-19 positive person, has been pulled to the server [from their devices]", IT Ministry Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney revealed during a press briefing yesterday. "Fewer than 13,000 users have been found COVID-19 positive. But through this information, we have found that about 1,40,000 people came in contact with them," he revealed. Also, location data of infected users along with data from self-assessment test from Aarogya Setu have been used to identify 697 potential hotspots in the country, Sawhney said. Information about hotspots can be generated at "pin code and post office level", he said. The app will also be made available on Reliance's "smart feature phones" that run on KaiOS soon, "maybe tomorrow [May 12]", he said. Sawhney heads the Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management, one of the 11 such groups constituted to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus far, Empowered Group 9 has had eleven meetings. During the press conference, he reiterated several times that the app is "privacy first" and that all data will will be deleted, at most 60 days after being collected. 'Aim of Aarogya Setu is to inform people, identify potential hotspots': IT Secretary Collected data is used to identify potential hotspots: “We combine the location data for last 14 days of people who are COVID-19 positive and collate it with self-assessment test from other people. By combining these, we can identify potential hotspots.…
