Thirty-year-old Prashanth*, a resident of Doddabanahalli in Davangere city in central Karnataka, got tested for the novel coronavirus at a designated government fever clinic on July 18, after he was found to be a primary contact. Since the time he got tested, he says he has remained asymptomatic. And till date, ten days on, he is yet to receive an official word whether he has tested positive or negative. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. On July 23, he received calls from four of his friends, who said that they were called by the office of Deputy Commissioner who told them that Prashanth had contracted the infection. “I was shocked to learn from them that they were called and they did not even bother to get in touch with me, even though my phone was available for calls all day. They could have come to my house to inform me too,” he told TNM. Prashanth says that strangely, his neighbours also came to know about the development and a barricade surrounding his house was put up, while he was kept in the dark. His neighbours, alarmed over the possibility that he might spread the infection, are not letting even his parents step outside the house. “For the last five days, we have been held as prisoners inside the house and we are running out of food provisions. Nobody from our neighbourhood nor the authorities have asked us how we are going to manage our food. I don’t want any help, I just need permission so that I can buy some basic food from my family,” he told TNM. He added, “I called up the Deputy Commissioner's office to ask why they did not call me. There, one of the staff members told me that it was normal practice to do so, and they got my friend’s number from my call records. But I am yet to get clarity on why I have not received an official report or even an SMS yet.” When Prashanth reached out to the doctor at the fever clinic, the doctor said that he needs to stay at home and that there was a delay in tests in general in the district. “Still, he also could not tell me if I was indeed positive or negative,” he said. Other than the misery that Prashanth was subjected to, the incident raises question marks over the state’s usage of personal data and its potential indiscriminate usage in wake of the pandemic. Superintendent of Police Hanumantharaya confirmed that his office hands over data to the DC’s office on a case-to case-basis as and when required in wake of the pandemic. But he denied knowledge about this specific incident. Despite multiple efforts, TNM could not reach the concerned health official Dr Yetish, Deputy Commissioner Mahantesh Belagi, or DC office staff member Kaveri for a comment. Tracking not unique to Davangere The tracking of phone calls and usage of call data records is not unique to the district. TNM spoke to police officials, including two Bengaluru-based Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs), who confirmed that call data records are being liberally used, as and when asked by the city civic body, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike. One of the DCPs mentioned that with the Disaster Management Act already invoked, this is a ready “technological tool” to trace the missing patient. The officer said otherwise too, on a case-to-case basis, call records are accessed by the police to trace suspects. All police stations have this system in place wherein authorised personnel get access to specific data on their official email ID from a time-to-time basis. “We have a dedicated team in all divisions and as and when the BBMP approaches us, we can almost access call data records, the last known location on a real-time basis. So this makes it easy to track the patients who are not cooperating,” one of the divisional DCPs posted in the city said. The officer added, “We have a dedicated system to access this data currently at the DCP level and we do not share it strictly with any private persons. Once the BBMP passes us the numbers, we have been so far able to trace most of the patients.” Another DCP confirmed that once the numbers are given by the BBMP we try to trace the patients based on their mobile data like the police would do in case of a missing person. The officer added that they have a success rate of 90% across divisions and the missing 10% is mostly due to wrong phone numbers. Legal and ethical concerns Legal experts well-versed with the issue at hand are of the opinion that in absence of a dedicated data protection law, it is of significance that under which specific legal provision this power is used by the authorities— be it the Disaster Management Act or the Criminal Procedure Code. Call data records at present are personal information both under the license agreement between the government and the telecom companies and Section 43-A of the Information Technology Act, they argued. “There neeeds to be a clear established process, where every query made to the system is logged along with a reason outlined in a textual order and an independent authority can later scrutinize every particular query. This would ensure that the principle of accountability exists and there is a system to check this power in case of an oversight. Even in this case, where this power is used for good, there is a need for accountability for all the times it can be misused. In absence of a mechanism of this sort, this is clearly excessive power at the hands of the police,” Pranesh Prakash, an expert in technology law told TNM. (*name changed)
