Anivar A Aravind vs Ministry of Home Affairs and others. Writ Petition 7483/2020 decided on 25 January 2021. Chief Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty
Judgment Link: https://karnatakajudiciary.kar.nic.in/noticeBoard/WP-7483-2020.pdf
HELD: 28. (i) We accept the assurance given by the Government
of India that no individual will be denied the benefits
of any services that are being provided by the
Governments, its agencies and instrumentalities on
the ground that he has not downloaded and
installed Aarogya Setu app;
(ii) Prima facie, we hold that informed consent of the
users of Aarogya Setu app is taken to what is
provided in the privacy policy which is available on
Aarogya Setu app itself and, therefore, there is an
informed consent of the users of Aarogya Setu app
which is limited only to collection and manner of
collection of information, use of information and
retention, as provided in the privacy policy which is
available on the Aarogya Setu app. However, it is
made clear that the use and retention of information
and data shall remain confined to what is provided
in the privacy policy which is available on the
Aarogya Setu app;
(iii) Prima facie, we hold that there is no informed
consent of users of Aarogya Setu app taken for
sharing of response data as provided in the
Aarogya Setu Data Access and Knowledge Sharing
Protocol, 2020, as there is no reference to the said
protocol in the terms of use and Privacy Policy
available on the app,
(iv) Till further orders, we hereby restrain the
Government of India and National Informatics
Centre, the eighth and seventh respondents
respectively from sharing the response data by
applying the provisions of the Aarogya Setu Data
Access and Knowledge Sharing Protocol, 2020
issued vide order dated 11th May, 2020
(Annexure-R19) unless the informed consent of the
users of Aarogya Setu app is taken;
(v) However, it will be open for the Union of India and
National Informatics Centre, the eighth and seventh
respondents respectively to file an affidavit for
satisfying the Court that the Chairperson,
Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management or the said Empowered Group is legally empowered to issue the said protocol and
that the informed consent of the users of Aarogya
Setu app is taken for implementation of clauses
regarding sharing of the data as provided in the said
protocol. After filing of an affidavit and the
documents as aforesaid, it will be open for the said
respondents to apply for vacating the limited interim
relief granted as above, in terms of clause (iii).
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