‘Preposterous’: IT Ministry Has No Info on Aarogya Setu Creation

The CIC’s order and observations related to a complaint by RTI activist and independent journalist Saurav Das, who had filed several RTI requests regarding the Aarogya Setu app. On 1 August, Das had sent queries to the CPIOs at MeitY, asking for details and documents on the creation of the Aarogya Setu app, including the origin of the proposal, how it was approved, which government departments were involved, and copies of communications with private persons involved in developing the app. The information officers failed to provide answers to any of his queries, only informing him on 7 August that the RTI application had been forwarded to the CPIO of the National E-Governance Division of the ministry. Das therefore filed a request for an urgent hearing at the CIC, in view of the “immense public interest” in the matter, given the privacy implications of the app’s collection of personal data of millions of users.