Source code of Aarogyasetu App is now open for review and collaboration. We should publish our response to it.

I have reopened the proposal since @Pirate Bady objected to some part of it.

IMHO it'd be better to start the statement with a positive note. even if the govt is only doing their duty by publishing the source code, i suggest that we should appreciate the move and encourage to keep following this path. anyway that's optional and i won't insist much on it.

my main issue is with the questions raised in the 'Track record of this government' section. for eg. consider the following question:

was this built just to waste public money?

this sounds more like mudslinging. we already see that a lot in the current politics, but that's not something we should be promoting. so i suggest to remove this question. if we can show that this app is not useful with the help of enough evidences then a better approach will be explaining it with the help of references.

Was this app built because of requirements from National Institute of Epidemiology? or the health ministry?

what are we actually trying to question here? it's ambiguous, so pls elaborate this question.

Is the app any useful in reducing covid-19 spread?

they already claim that arogya setu keeps you safe and you can find it here at https://www.aarogyasetu.gov.in. so there's no point in asking the same again. what we need instead is to ask for a quantitative analysis of the usefulness of this app and the the mathematical model that is used for the same. without transparency in the model there's no way we can verify the claims made by the govt. so i suggest to rephrase this question as follows:

How helpful is the Arogya Setu app in reducing COVID-19 spread? How is the usefulness of this app measured quantitatively and what mathematical model is followed for the same?

What about the population that do not have a smartphone?

we don't have to take 'all or nothing' approach here, even if we don't mean that this may sound like it. better add the following to it:

Are there any extra measures taken to ensure their protection?

167 issues and 86 pull requests have been added to the android repository by the Free Software community as of 28-05-2020

for additional impact i suggest to add the following to it:

i.e. within 48 hours since the source has been published.

I have modified the proposal with your inputs, please check if you are comfortable now.

thanks. but the question "was this built just to waste public money" is still there as it is. i suggest to add @piratekp's explanation for this question to the statement.

i.e. replace the following:

Was this app built because of requirements from National Institute of Epidemiology? or the health ministry? or was this built just to waste public money?.

with this:

There is yet to be seen any evidence that the initiative came from NIE, or the ministry of health or the NDMA. In case of such ambiguity, we speculate that the initiative could have been from a certain think-tank who wants to put their stack in every industry possible. In that case isn't it a wastage of public money to build something which none of these ministries has requested for?

the second reference link in the statement, i.e. https://www.statista.com/statistics/257048/smartphone-user-penetration-in-india, is asking to sign up for premium account to view the statistics.

@Pirate Bady The statements you have objections have been in the draft as place holders:
https://pad.disroot.org/p/05-28-2020-arogyasetu/timeslider#1830

Context: Just because there is a claim on arogya setu site that it keeps you safe, doesn't mean its right. I haven't seen any hard evidence that a tracing app can keep you safe. Agenda has always been to give examples of Korea and Singapore to highlight the effectiveness of a tracing app. But unfortunately, that doesn't prove that a tracing app is effective.

The initiative for arogya setu app has to be questioned. This is because there is yet to be seen any evidence that the initiative came from NIE, or the ministry of health or the NDMA. In case of such ambiguity, I speculate that the initiative could have been from a certain thinktank who wants to put their stack in every industry possible. In that case, does it make sense to waste public money to build something which none of these ministries has requested for? Isn't it valid to ask why this was built? And regarding how this initiative was pushed down people's throat with no regard to livelihood is criminal.

There is a lot of ambiguity and doubts around this initiative and as a politically aligned organisation, isn't it, our responsibility to put out these questions in the open to be answered. If these questions are not asked, is anyone liable or willing to answer them? We have also mentioned that when there is more clarity, we would come out with a detailed statement. This current statement is about the current situation and lack of clarity that we are in.

Regarding opening with a positive note. IMO there is nothing to be positive about this, yet we have lauded publishing the code and we have stated the facts as it is about speculation regarding if the govt will accept merge requests and support or not.

@Akshay had kind of confirmed the case behind this in his tweets that there is not much hope in this direction.

Thanks for the clarifications. I have made some changes, see if you are okay with it. Also since we did not publish an early statement, I think we can include recommendation for choosing DP-3T protocol which preserves privacy by storing only anonymous data in the server and already accepted by Switzerland, Germany and Italy. https://codema.in/d/vhoA0lCM/aarogya-setu-app-is-released-as-free-software-we-should-respond-to-this-with-a-statement/33

https://ncase.me/contact-tracing/panels/panel0002.png?v=4 explains the need for a contact tracing app. @Akshay can you validate this?

@piratekp i agree with everything you said. i'm not against the content of the questions, my issue is with the way they're phrased. i understand that those questions were actually placeholders and i'm only asking to improve on them. improve the tone and add more context. i'm okay with how @Pirate Praveen has incorporated the changes.

On second thoughts, let's publish this now as follow up statement also can delay things more. If you change your vote, then we can publish.

i've clarified my stance.

This panel isn't wrong per se. Although we may not know everything about this particular virus, we know that viruses can spread from B to C even before B is symptomatic.

There is some context to be laid though.

The kind of "staying one step ahead" described here can only happen if B gets tested, gets detected positive, that information is stored in the database, and then disseminated to people who have had contact with B (including C) and C understands what is asked of them and quarantines themselves.

So, the things that need to happen on the ground are

• people should get themselves tested early

• people should be given tests even with just a couple of symptoms for a day

• tests should rapidly return results and be accurately tagged to the individual that tested positive (and their ID in the surveillance system)

• contact tracing solution should be able to pick up the real contacts. (Remember what Kerala government used to do - it published roadmap, timings, flight number, etc and considered whoever could have come in contact to be careful. That's the kind of work that contact tracing apps should help in). If there are too many false positives, people lose trust in the app quickly. If there are too many false negatives, we are putting people in great danger by giving false sense of security.

• contacts notified through the app should be able to trust the notification given and self-quarantine themselves (or get tested)

All of this should happen in India.

Thanks, we can publish it now. I have included your suggestions.

Thanks for the detailed response. We can include all of these in the follow up statement.

statement published at https://pirates.org.in/statements/arogya-setu-source-release