Indian Govt to Launch CoWin-20 App to Track People and Curb Coronavirus Spread

The Government of India is set to launch CoWin-20, a new Smartphone app that aims to track individuals by their smartphone locations, and curb the community spread of corona virus. With India precariously positioned at the brink of stage III of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian government now aims to trace the personal travel histories of individuals through CoWin-20, and figure out how many people might they have come in contact with. This, in turn, would help the Indian government monitor the community spread of the corona virus, and quarantine any individual who may be potentially at risk.

The CoWin-20 app is now in beta testing for both iOS and Android, and sources close to the government have stated that the app will see its stable builds being released on both Google Play Store and Apple’s iOS App Store in the coming days. For now, the Android app is being distributed among a select group of users through an APK that can be installed on devices, whereas users of iOS devices will be required to share their device UDIDs with the National Informatics Centre to get a unique download link.

According to reports, the app will have several components to it, and it is possible that with its features it may help Indians stay safe and away from Covid-19 infections, and it may help the government contain the disease.

But how? Details are scarce right now, but there will be three key components to the CoWin-20. One, it will help the government track the travel histories of individuals who are infected with coronavirus. This the app will be able to do by tracking the location of an individual. While this raises privacy issues, currently it is not clear how the government will handle it. But the idea is that with CoWin the government will likely be able to track people who are infected or people who have been quarantined.

The second part is contact tracing and sharing that information with public. Because the CoWin-20 app may know where the Covid-19 cases are, it will be able to help the government determine how many people came in contact with virus and what routes and places Covid-19 infected people took. The app is likely to share some of this information with users so they will also know what places they should avoid.

The functionality is similar to what is provided in an app that Singapore government recently made. That app too allows public to see the Covid-19 infections and then avoid the relevant areas.

The third big feature of the CoWin-20 is likely to be information about nearest Covid-19 centres, again based on location data. This could be somewhat similar to information provided by a Google-made website in the US. The app will also highlight updates from the government, government advisories and safety recommendations.

The app is currently being tested by a select group of users, according to reports. It will be made available for both android and iOS devices. Android users can access the app through an APK and the users of iOS devices will be required to share their device UDIDs with the National Informatics Centre to get a unique download link while the app is under beta testing.

The app will see its stable builds released on Google Play Store and Apple’s iOS App store in the near future, sources close to the government told News18. Starting March 25, India went into a complete lockdown for 21 days. The development was announced by PM Modi in order to contain coronavirus. As on Wednesday, 9 people have died in India because of Covid-19 and the country has over 500 positive cases.

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