Aarogya Setu, India’s contact-tracing app, goes open-source

At 12 am midnight on the 27th of May 2020, Aarogya Setu — India’s digital contact tracing app — will go open-source and be uploaded to a public GitHub repository. CEO of NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant announced at a press conference that Aarogya Setu has been installed 114mn times, reached out to 9 lac contacts and represents a contact tracing app that is larger than the sum total of all other apps used in other countries. According to Kant, 98% of Aarogya Setu installs are on Android devices, which explains the initial release of the Android client source code for the app. With the source code of the client and server elements of Aarogya Setu being open to public scrutiny, criticisms of potential privacy issues should eventually be put to rest, and fixes verifiable.