Government of India makes Aarogya Setu app open source; here is what it means

In a major win for privacy advocates, the Government of India on Tuesday made Aarogya Setu app for Android open source. Its iOS (and KaiOS) code will be open sourced in the coming days as well. This means that researchers and cybersecurity experts will now be able to audit the Aarogya Setu app at their full discretion, helping find potential flaws in India’s first truly comprehensive COVID-19 tracking app, hopefully in a fair and transparent manner.

The Aarogya Setu source code for Android is now available on GitHub and the Government has said that all future app updates will be made through this dedicated repository. The reason why it chose Android to begin with is because over 90% of Aarogya Setu usage apparently comes from Android. The app is also available for iOS, and even for KaiOS-based feature phones like the JioPhone. The iOS and KaiOS source code will also be released soon.