The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology recently made that Aarogya Setu – India’s COVID-19 contact-tracing and self-assessment app – open source.
It released the source code of the app to promote transparency and collaboration with the software developer community.
But what does an open-source software mean?
Any software that has to be bought or licensed from the creator of the software is called a closed-source software. The intellectual property rights of the software, even if bought or licensed, remains with the creator.
But in an open-source app, it requires no licensing and need not be bought. Its source code is open for everyone to download, examine, redistribute, and improve upon with an acknowledgement to the original software coder.
The IT Ministry’s move came in the wake of demands from cyber law experts and critics who had said the app was too closed in nature and expressed concerns around privacy of data being collected by the contact tracing app.
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Currently, the government has made the Android version of the Aarogya Setu app open source and the iOS version of the application will be released as open-source within the next two weeks and the server code will also be released subsequently.
Launched on April 2, the app is being used by nearly 98% Android phone users. The app is available for both iOS and Android users. The app has been downloaded by more than 10 crores people.
The application uses Bluetooth and location data to find out whether a user has come in contact with a COVID-19 positive person or not.