Government Open Sources Aarogya Setu App Code After Facing Criticisms

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. Initially, the Android client code will be available, which will be followed in two weeks by the iOS client (for Apple devices) and KaiOS code (for Jio feature phones).

The back-end code for servers that process the data provided by Aarogya Setu users, will also be open-sourced at a future date. This is a significant step forward toward transparency in the collection and usage of sensitive data, and was announced at a press conference held by NITI Aayog.

CEO Amitabh Kant announced 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. The impressive statistics continue: 50mn installs in 13 days, 100mn in 41 days.