Criticism has emerged against the “back-end code” of Aarogya Setu app released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), as security experts say that details released are “not what it is claimed to be,” Mint reported.
Anivar Aravind, an advisory board member at the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), told the paper that what had been released were “non-functional code snippets.”
“It is client-side code loaded onto the app from a web address and not the server functions or the data-handling part. The back-end code, which handles the data, including the data schemas, has still been kept secret," he said.
Aravind challenged Karnataka’s mandatory imposition of the Aarogya Setu app in the state High Court due to privacy concerns.
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Karan Saini, another security researcher said the codes given out now “doesn’t allow you to glean any kind of useful information about the functioning of Aarogya Setu, apart from a few superficial snippets.” He added that the current code is ‘open sourced’ and only shows client-side functions of the app, while concerns were about what data is being processed and how it is being stored and accessed.
A good way to identify true back-end code, experts say, is that it will allow one to run their own versions of the app in question. What is given now they say is snippets of the open-sourced front-end.
These questions are part of a longer debate around the transparency and privacy concerns surrounding the Aarogya Setu app. MeitY did not respond to queries, as per the report.
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The government on November 20 said that it has released the backend code of Aarogya Setu in the open domain to help people understand the functioning of the COVID-19 contact-tracing app and allay apprehensions they may have around privacy and security.
Aarogya Setu was launched by the Government of India on April 2 with active involvement of the best of the minds from the Indian industry, academia and government working round the clock to build a robust, scalable and secure app, it said.
The app is now being maintained and supported by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
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