Practices on Aarogya Setu: Mapping Citizen Interaction with the Contact-Tracing App in the Time of COVID-19

Abstract

The usage of contact-tracing applications has been synonymous with ensuring one's health security and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. These contact-tracing apps have been scripted differently by each country, within design choices of centralized vs. decentralized architecture, closed vs. open-source protocol and collecting location vs. proximity data features. The distinct script of contact-tracing apps caters to the contextual background of each country with a presupposition about on-ground and consistent usage of the app. The article explores the ways in which citizens in India negotiate the usage of the Aarogya Setu digital contact-tracing app. It reveals citizens' on-ground practices of adopting or evading the app usage, besides reflecting on the broader institutional shortcomings that shape the scepticism towards technological solutionism in critical health exigencies. Three such practices are identified and thematically presented as resistance by early deletion, resistance by selective adoption and constrained adoption. The findings steer concerns regarding user-friendly designs and revisiting governance structures before deploying any technological solutionism by the state. Here, the paper attempts to reverse the gaze and explore how citizens'(in)effective adoption of the Aarogya Setu app not only responds but also challenges the norm of digital contact-tracing solutionism.