JioPhone, JioPhone 2 To Get Aarogya Setu App Soon

The Indian government came up with the Aarogya Setu, which is a coronavirus contact tracking app. This app is compatible with both Android and iOS devices and the number of downloads has surpassed 9 crores so far. It is also mandatory for the government and private sector employees to download this app as a part of the efforts taken to combat the spread of coronavirus.

Besides providing people with information such as ways to avoid the coronavirus and symptoms related to it, the app also helps users identify if they are at the risk of contracting the virus. Given the importance of the app, the smartphone brands such as Xiaomi have started pre-installing the app in their devices. Now, there seems to be KaiOS capability as well.

JioPhone To Get Aarogya Setu App

As per a recent report by Reuters, the government is in plans to rollout the Aarogya Setu app to JioPhones. Well, the app is yet to be released for the KaiOS-based 4G feature phones from Reliance Jio. And, there is no clarity regarding when the app will be rolled out to these phones.

If it happens to be launched for the KaiOS, then the 100 million JioPhone users in the country will get the app. However, the adoption of the app will depend on the choice of the 4G feature phone users. To be clear, only 90 million of the overall smartphone userbase of 500 million have downloaded the Aarogya Setu app (both Android and iOS).

What Does Aarogya Setu App Do?

As seen before, the Aarogya Setu app makes use of Bluetooth and GPS to let users if they are coming into contact with someone who is infected by COVID-19. It also lets users know if they are risk of getting infected by the same. The app is available in 10 languages and provides instructions related to self-isolation.

The app asks users to provide information such as name, age, profession, gender, smoking status, travel history, etc. Given that these details are valuable for hackers, the app is criticized to expose users to privacy risk. The government has dismissed this claim but there is no clarity about who has access to the user data.