Elliot Alderson calls COVID-19 tracking app Aarogya Setu a 'surveillance system'

Ethical hacker Elliot Alderson, who exposed flaws in the Aadhaar Android application, has warned against privacy issues of the Aarogya Setu app.

The Centre was however, quick to respond and dismissed any kind of data breach or security issues raised by him.

Alderson revealed his 'findings' on the COVID-19 tracking app in an article titled 'Aarogya Setu: The Story of a failure'. He noted how hackers could gain access to information about – The number of people infected, unwell, declared as Bluetooth positive as well as the number of people using the app and the number of self-assessments made near the hackers' areas.

In a series of tweets, Alderson wrote: "A mobile application that sends your GPS coordinates regularly to a server owned by a government is a surveillance system."

Privacy is a myth in India.

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Someone sent me the list of the patients with confirmed #Covid19 infections. In this list you have the name, age, sex, address and phone number of the patients. These lists are available publicly on WhatsApp... pic.twitter.com/M0P8fAGMbi — Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) May 8, 2020

"We need it to fight #Covid19"

No, you need: - tests to identify infected people - masks - gloves - contact tracers - respect social distancing - isolate infected people An app alone will not break the contamination chain. — Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) May 8, 2020

"The government said the app is unhackable" Nothing is unhackable. With enough motivation and skill, everything can be hacked. — Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) May 8, 2020

"Why are losing your time on Twitter?"

The impact. Together we made incredible things. Every opportunity to raise privacy awareness should be taken. Especially when a lot of media scrutinize your tweets — Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) May 8, 2020

"You are just an attention seeker, you just want more followers"

You have no idea how painful is it to have a big twitter account. You received thousands of messages, comments, insults. I don't earn money with it. Sometimes, it's very cool but there are a lot of drawbacks — Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) May 8, 2020

"We are in 21st century, we have the technology, tracking people phones it will ends #Covid19 for sure" Just look at China. You don't even imagine how China is monitoring his population. And they were unable to avoid the propagation of the virus. — Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) May 8, 2020

"It's ok, my government told me that this is temporary, they will delete my data and I will be able to uninstall their contact tracing app" You are dreaming my friend. All these surveillance systems are here to stay. I am ready to bet a beer if you want — Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) May 8, 2020