Aarogya Setu app could be mandatory for air travel post-lockdown: Report

It looks like those planning to fly in the near future many need to have the Aarogya Setu app installed on their smartphones. According to a report by PTI, the government may be planning to make it mandatory for flyers post the lockdown period to have the Aarogya Setu application installed on their phones. 

“Preliminary discussions regarding making this app mandatory for air passengers have been done with the airlines," the government officials told the news agency. It was also added that the  Civil Aviation Ministry is yet to take a decision in this regard. It should be noted that the Aarogya Setu app is already mandatory for anyone planning to travel by rail. 

The Aarogya Setu app is India’s own contact tracing app that is designed to allow users to know how much ‘at risk’ they are of contacting the COVID-19 Coronavirus. It was recently reported that the app has been downloaded over 100 million times. The app was launched on April 2 and was downloaded by over 50 million users in 13 days, making it the fastest app to reach that milestone. 

However, the security capabilities of the app have been brought into question. Notable security researcher, Robert Baptiste, aka Elliot Alderson has warned the Indian government of security lapses in the Aarogya Setu app. He says that a malicious attacker can access a person’s information from anywhere. This could include details about their self-assessment test and they could even change their location and search radius to gather more Coronavirus-related information from various regions. However, the National Informatics Centre that developed Aarogya Setu was quick to issue a public statement denouncing the findings by Alderson. You can read more about there here.

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