India Inc panel to guide Covid-19 patient tracker

The government is roping in industry leaders such as Mahindra & Mahindra Chairman Anand Mahindra and Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran to be part of a panel tasked with developing a technology platform to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak. The panel will also help to improve the Arogya Setu app, keeping privacy issues in mind, within three months.

“This is a one-of-a-kind exercise to enable social distancing among people even as we allow them to move about freely after the lockdown, and to allow prompt evaluation if they have been possibly exposed to the virus,” said a senior government official aware of the committee’s scope of work.

The group, which will process a deluge of proposals from academicians, technology and healthcare professionals and the public on tackling the Covid-19 outbreak, would also comprise Principal Scientific Advisor K VijayRaghavan, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman RS Sharma, Electronics and Information Technology Secretary Ajay Sawhney and Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash.

Though the government has launched the Aarogya Setu app, the committee will find ways to improve it and decide what information should be redacted and uploaded. The panel is studying how technology is being leveraged across the globe to track whether by going to a particular location, a person would be exposed to anyone who has Covid-19 or has displayed mild symptoms. This information would be crucial in places that see large congregations such as schools, offices and markets.

“The committee will take a call on various privacy issues that could be involved in tracking. For instance, in Europe, telcos are sharing anonymised data with health departments in Italy, Austria and Germany to uphold privacy of individuals while alerting others,” the official explained.

“Once a Covid-19 patient is identified, with the person’s consent, health officials could redact the location trail of the patient and broadcast it to others.” Another official said in some countries such as Taiwan, a mobile phone app was being used to ensure that the patient remained quarantined at home.

“Since India is such a large country, we will need to develop solutions that are workable here and also use the app and technology to inform people what are the places closest to them where they can find essential items such as masks.” The committee has been empowered to rope in more members if required.