Kerala high court refuses stay on mandatory use of Arogya setu app

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday refused to pass an interim order to stay the mandatory downloading of ‘Arogya Setu’ app on employees’ phones and sought a statement from the central government on data safeguards of the app being developed by the National Informatics Centre.

A bench comprising Justices Anu Sivaraman and M R Anitha asked the Centre whether it can give a guarantee that the information collected by the app would not be misused at any time. The counsel for the central government said privacy of data was ensured and it will submit a detailed statement in this regard during the next hearing. He said it has been recognised as the best app in the world fighting the Covid-19 and lakhs of people have already downloaded it.