The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the National Center for Informatics have said that they have no information about the “creation” of the Aarogya Setu application promoted by the government to contain the spread of Covid-19, responses described as “absurd “by the Central Information Commission. The transparency panel has issued a show of cause notice to the NIC to explain why it is not penalized under the Right to Information Act (RTI) for “prima facie obstructing information and providing an evasive response” .
Information Commissioner Vanaja N Sarna, in concise order, noted that the app’s website mentions that the content is “owned, updated and maintained” by MyGov and MeitY and ordered the ministry’s CPIO to explain why they did not. I have the required information. “The CPIO NIC should also explain that when the website mentions that Aarogya Setu Platform is designed, developed and hosted by the National Center for Informatics, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Government of India, then ¿ how come they don’t have any information about creating the app, “he said.
The Information Commissioner was listening to the allegation of a Saurav Das who had tried to find out from the government details about the creation of the Aarogya Setu app, the law under which it is operating, and whether the government planned to introduce a separate law on data handling collected by the application. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) did not provide any information, prompting Das to file a complaint under the RTI Act.
He had made a similar request to the NIC, which responded by saying it had no information. During the hearing before the Commission, Das said that the response from the NIC was surprising, as NIC is the developer of the application. He also said that the ministry also did not provide any information related to the creation of the mobile application and other matters.
He told the Commission that many credible media reports have questioned the Aarogya Setu application, its development and handling, making it “of utmost importance” to provide transparency in the creation and handling of this application, which collects large amounts of personal data. and users. of individuals. After listening to the presentations of the ministry officials, Sarna pointed out that, ultimately, the measures taken until today failed to locate the source from where the information can be accessed.
“None of the CPIOs could explain anything about who created the application, where the files are, and the same is extremely absurd,” he said. The Commission notes that this is a current issue and it is not possible that there was no file movement when creating this application. “A citizen cannot go around in circles to find the custodian,” Sarna said.
“The CPIO, the NIC submissions that the whole file related to application building is not with NIC is understandable, but the same submissions if accepted from MeITY, NeGD and NIC in full, then it becomes more relevant now find out how an application was created and there is no information with any of the relevant public authorities, “he said. “Therefore, the Commission instructs the CPIO, NIC to explain this matter in writing about how the website https://aarogyasetu.gov.in/ was created with the domain name HYPERLINK” http://gov.in ” gov.in, if they don’t have any information about it, “Sarna ordered.
The Information Commissioner issued a demonstration cause notice to four officials: Deputy Directors MeitY SK Tyagi and DK Sagar, Senior General Manager of the National E-Government Division RA Dhawan and CPIO NIC Swarup Dutta. “Recipients cannot simply wash their hands indicating that the information is not available with them. Some effort should have been made to find out the custodian (s) of the requested information, by the public authorities concerned when they appear to be the relevant parties.” , said.
She ordered the officers to appear before the Commission to explain why they were not being penalized under the RTI Act.
(With PTI inputs)
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