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Click here to read a short explainer of the working paper’s analysis of @SetuAarogya and the privacy risks therein.
1/9 https://internetfreedom.in/is-aarogya-setu-privacy-first-nope-but-it-could-be-if-the-government-wanted/
1/9 https://internetfreedom.in/is-aarogya-setu-privacy-first-nope-but-it-could-be-if-the-government-wanted/
Contact tracing was studied in Chapters 5-7 of the paper. We studied country practices, initiatives by technologists and a study of what’s happening in India. We did a case study of Aarogya Setu against systems like Singapore’s TraceTogether and MIT’s Private Kit:Safe Paths
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Privacy respecting principles for contact tracing include:
Use of applications should be voluntary and should remain in control of user
All data should be stored locally
Data must be encrypted
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Use of applications should be voluntary and should remain in control of userAll data should be stored locallyData must be encrypted3/9
Government should not be able to access dataData should not be stored in a central serverSystems should appreciate that location data and movements are sensitive personal informationPrivacy by design is more than just assurances of encryption and anonymization4/9
Therefore, contact tracing solutions must adhere to two principles:
- Strict limits in terms of collection, use and duration
- Comprehensive evidence based justifications every step of the way
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- Strict limits in terms of collection, use and duration
- Comprehensive evidence based justifications every step of the way
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We found Aarogya to be subpar compared to MIT and Singapore in several ways
- The purpose doesn’t appear to be disease control
- Instead of being primary agency the involvement of the health ministry is minimal
- This can be used for law enforcement or lockdown control
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- The purpose doesn’t appear to be disease control
- Instead of being primary agency the involvement of the health ministry is minimal
- This can be used for law enforcement or lockdown control
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- No consistency with principles of minimisation
- Opaque practices lead to increase in Government discretion & impunity
- Unsupervised algorithms may take decisions which affect people’s rights including whether they can take public transport or move around in community
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- Opaque practices lead to increase in Government discretion & impunity
- Unsupervised algorithms may take decisions which affect people’s rights including whether they can take public transport or move around in community
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- No provision for accountability of govt
- No scheme to audit the govts practices and ensure deletion of personal data
- Risk of permanent systems of surveillance because no mention of sunset clause
- Using anonymization as a justification for permanent data analysis systems
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- No scheme to audit the govts practices and ensure deletion of personal data
- Risk of permanent systems of surveillance because no mention of sunset clause
- Using anonymization as a justification for permanent data analysis systems
8/9
The working paper unpacks all of these issues and much more with regard to contact tracing and puts forth 17 concrete recommendations at the end of Chapter 7. Please give it a read and provide feedback to our analysis this week.
9/9 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nDoPzygQyTetEguOlzula5O9y5f3f5YJDsA2Pd99O6U/edit#heading=h.5je3mbv90ww7
9/9 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nDoPzygQyTetEguOlzula5O9y5f3f5YJDsA2Pd99O6U/edit#heading=h.5je3mbv90ww7
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