The murmurs against Aarogya are growing | Economic Times

New Delhi | Bengaluru: The onus to ensure that all private sector employees install the central’s government’s health app Aarogya Setu on their mobile phones cannot lie with the head of a company, according to MAIT, the country’s hardware manufacturing body.“Dereliction by an individual employee should not be a sword hanging over management,” MAIT’s chief executive officer George Paul told ET.The nodal industry grouping, which counts as its members global technology majors Cisco, Dell, Intel and Canon among others, will write to the government seeking a withdrawal of this punitive measure announced in the guidelines released by the ministry of home affairs while announcing the extension of the lockdown to stem the spread of Covid-19.‘Enabling Feature to Resume Ops’“It is advisable that punitive measures on heads (of companies) be withdrawn,” said Paul who took over as head of the industry lobby in April 2019.“Heads of all organisations are equally keen to run their operations without the pandemic situation flaring up. So, any measures in that direction will be implemented. And the more data populated the app is, the more effective it will become,” he said.An official from the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) said this measure (installing the app) has been implemented on the demand of the services industry which wants to control the pandemic but at the same time wants the economy to also open up.“While this may seem like it is being made mandatory, it should be seen from the light of an enabling feature which can allow businesses to start operations,” the official said.“Anyone who is in the red rating should not come to work, and only those who are green should step out. Privacy matters to that extent only and the larger economy of the country has to be also taken care of,” said the official on condition of anonymity.MHA in its notification last Friday had allowed factories and offices in designated zones to begin operations while mandating the use of the contact tracing Aarogya Setu app by all employees while holding heads of respective organisations liable for 100% coverage. Any negligence, if proven, on the part of a director, manager, secretary or any other official shall lead to punishment, it said.Earlier in the week, the central government had also mandated all its employees as well as those working with public sector organisations to download the app. Residents in containment zones — demarcated within red (hotspots) and orange zones by state and district administrations as per health ministry guidelines — must also download the app.“The law is fine, its purpose is also nice, but the government should also help on how to enforce it,” said CP Gurnani, CEO of Tech Mahindra, adding that he doesn’t have an issue from the principal data side since it is a well-designed and well-engineered app.Pointing out that while an organisation can ask its employees to install the app, but if some of the employees delete it later, “how will anybody enforce it,” Gurnani said.Elsewhere, one of India’s largest conglomerates, which is expected to mandate employees to download the app closer to the opening date, is seeking clarity on how factory workers without access to smartphones will download the app.“There are also concerns about the app violating Europe’s GDPR norms and whether expats working at the conglomerate can be forced to download the app,” said the company executive who did not want to be named.So far close to 88 million people have downloaded the app and the government’s aim is to take it 350 million — covering all smartphone users in the country.“I don’t think there will be a situation where the industry will be harassed. But, let’s see how the enforcement is done,” said Ashish Aggarwal, senior director at National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the software lobby that has not received any expression of concern over the app from member companies.People who are voicing privacy concerns should look at the government’s move of mandating employees from a health point of view and not data, Aggarwal said, pointing out that app can always be deleted, while the government has also clarified that data will be deleted in a specific time frame. “So, there is additional comfort in that,” he said.Several companies such as Mahindra and Mahindra, Flipkart, NMDC, Ericsson, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Vijay Khetan Group have mandated their employees to download the app.“As the nation is looking to move out of the lockdown in a calibrated manner, there is no better tool than technology to aid individuals, organisations and government bodies alike,” said Ruzbeh Irani, president — Group HR & Communications for Mahindra & Mahindra.