A Division Bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Vishwajith Shetty of Karnataka High Court restrained the Central government and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) from sharing the data of Aarogya Setu App users without obtaining their informed consent.
The interim order was passed in a writ petition filed by Anivar Aravind, seeking directions to the authorities to refrain from denying services to citizens for not installing the ‘Aarogya Setu’ application. In its interim order, the court stated:
“Till further orders, we restrain the Government of India and National Informatics Centre from sharing the response data, by applying provisions of Aarogya Setu Data Access and Knowledge Sharing Protocol, 2020, unless informed consent of user is taken.Prima facie we hold that there is no informed consent taken of users for sharing of response data as provided in Aaroagya Setu Protocol 2020.”
The informed consent of the user is limited to the collection and manner of collection information as provided in the privacy policy available on the Aarogya Setu app, the bench noted.
The Court also recorded the assurance of Central Government that it would not deny any benefit or services to a citizen only on the ground that he/she has not installed Aarogya setu app.
The Bench stated that,“The interim relief is only confined to the data sharing protocol.”
