MAY 29, 2020
FSF India, appreciates the Indian government's effort to publish the source code of
the Aarogya Setu application as Free Software. It is the first step towards achieving
"transparency, privacy, and security" as mentioned by CEO of NITI Aayog, Amitabh
Kant as the core values on which the application was designed. However, we stress that,
this is only a first step and we hope that the government will follow up with some more
actions that further strengthen the commitment made towards transparency, privacy and
security.
Some of the specific technical steps that would strengthen the commitment towards
transparency include:
Publishing the source code of server side code so that the solution is completely usable
for any one interested in using it.
Ensuring systems for reproducibility of builds so that application may be verified and
security is enhanced.
Lack of good legal frameworks for personal data protection and use of server side data
implies that source code release will not help us address the questions raised around
privacy and security of the data. Without such legal framework, there shall be no
transparency either. While release of source code is definitely a positive first step, it
is not sufficient in addressing concerns around an application like Aarogya Setu.
FSF India, hopes that release of Aarogya Setu application as free software will lead to
more software being published under a free software license. We urge the national
government and the state government agencies to follow this lead and publish software they
develop under a Free Software license. As the leading national agency for software
development we thank National Informatics Center and encourage them to release more
software as Free Software.
We also urge the government to take necessary steps to build a strong personal data
protection system in the country with our citizen's interest and privacy at the centre
stage.
http://fsf.org.in/news/arogya-sethu/
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Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.