With its reputation as India’s foremost information technology hub, Karnataka has taken the lead in technological interventions to monitor the Covid-19 spread. Its computer science major jobs dashboard had caught public attention and its decision to list the addresses of all those quarantined had also created a furor for alleged naming and shaming. Conversely, citizens do have a right to know who could be a potential carrier and must be able to stay away from suspected cases.The two Android apps launched by the state Corona Watch and Quarantine Time are already a talking point.
In his op-ed piece in The Hindu today, chief minister BS Yediyurappa mentioned Corona Watch flagging its ability to reveal the digital/physical footprints of coronavirus-infected patients. It also offers a Google Maps rendering of all people who have been ordered into home quarantine with their residence address, date of arrival, period of quarantine, and origin of journey. Currently, people who have been in the vicinity of confirmed patients have to alert authorities. Yediyurappa has written the app will also inform all contacts of quarantined patients, perhaps by extracting their phone contacts and alerting them.
The Quarantine Watch app is already a matter of hot discussion with people both welcoming and dissing the initiative. Some took exception to the requirement that those quarantined have to mandatorily upload geo-tagged selies every hour from 7 am to 10 pm for a government team to verify that they are not skipping the quarantine. Violators will reportedly be moved to a government facility, a scary prospect for many. Though around 23,000 people are in the quarantine list now, the app has seen only around 500 downloads so far. And there are already comments by irate users complaining of buggy features.
In his op-ed piece in The Hindu today, chief minister BS Yediyurappa mentioned Corona Watch flagging its ability to reveal the digital/physical footprints of coronavirus-infected patients. It also offers a Google Maps rendering of all people who have been ordered into home quarantine with their residence address, date of arrival, period of quarantine, and origin of journey. Currently, people who have been in the vicinity of confirmed patients have to alert authorities. Yediyurappa has written the app will also inform all contacts of quarantined patients, perhaps by extracting their phone contacts and alerting them.
The Quarantine Watch app is already a matter of hot discussion with people both welcoming and dissing the initiative. Some took exception to the requirement that those quarantined have to mandatorily upload geo-tagged selies every hour from 7 am to 10 pm for a government team to verify that they are not skipping the quarantine. Violators will reportedly be moved to a government facility, a scary prospect for many. Though around 23,000 people are in the quarantine list now, the app has seen only around 500 downloads so far. And there are already comments by irate users complaining of buggy features.
No comments:
Post a Comment