Karnataka HC declines to stay use of Aarogya Setu app, data collected from its users

The High Court of Karnataka on Monday declined to stay the Aarogya Setu app or use of data of the users already collected via the app whereas prima facie holding that there’s “informed consent of the users” via the “privacy policy” of the app.

However, the Court restrained the Central authorities and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) from sharing the data collected via the app with different authorities authorities and companies as per the Aarogya Setu Data Access and Knowledge Sharing Protocol, 2020, until additional orders.

The Court gave liberty to the Centre to transfer the courtroom for vacating of this interim order on sharing data primarily based on data sharing protocol by producing related doc to show that the Chairperson of the Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management had the ability within the regulation to problem the data sharing protocol.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty handed the interim order on the PIL petition, filed by Anivar A. Aravind, a software program engineer working for a non-profit organisation to shield individuals’s rights within the digital house.

As the Centre had made it clear that use of the app shouldn’t be necessary however voluntary, and an individual wouldn’t be denied of any companies for not having downloaded the app, the Bench didn’t go into the allegation made by the petitioner that companies have been being denied to residents for not utilizing the app.

The petitioner, through the pendency of the petition, had sought a course from the Court to restrain the Central authorities from continuing with the app and with the data collected, in any method, whether or not the gathering of data from the members of the general public is said to be voluntary or involuntary.