He helped develop the Aarogya Setu app

April 21, 2020 10:14

On April 14, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus till May 3, he referred to the Aarogya Setu app as a critical link in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 in the country. Since being released on April 2, the app has seen over 50 million downloads, and the contact tracing app for COVID-19 has jumped to the top of Google Playstore.

However, the app has also been making news for some wrong reasons, like data privacy concerns, fears that the government will use it as a surveillance tool.

Lalitesh Katragadda, former country head, Google India Products worked on the Aarogya Setu app along with a team of 30 volunteers.

"We are probably one of the first large-scale Internet apps wherein there is no other purpose (behind collecting data) and that is a step further in the protection of users," Katragadda, below, tells Roshneesh K'Maneck/Rediff.com in the first of a two-part interview. Do read

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