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Geo-fencing app will be used to locate quarantine violators GS: 3 "EMPOWER IAS"

Geo-fencing app will be used to locate quarantine violators GS: 3 "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

  • The Centre is using powers under the Indian Telegraph Act to “fetch information” from telecom companies every 15 minutes to track COVID-19 cases across the country.

 

What is Geo-fencing?

  • A geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area.
  • A geo-fence could be dynamically generated—as in a radius around a point location, or a geo-fence can be a predefined set of boundaries (such as school zones or neighbourhood boundaries).
  • The use of a geofence is called geofencing, and one example of usage involves a location-aware device of a location-based service (LBS) user entering or exiting a geo-fence.
  • This activity could trigger an alert to the device’s user as well as messaging to the geo-fence operator.
  • There are two types of geofence virtual barriers.
  1. Active geofence depends on the end-user – it can easily use location services to track them down. It can also be done with the help of a certain smartphone apps.
  2. Passive geofencing is one which stays on all the time. These type of fencing depends on internet connectivity that can be cellular or via Wi-Fi rather than RFID and GPS. They always work in the background if the location on a smartphone is switched on.

 

Applications of geofence:

  1. Social networking.
  2. Marketing
  3. Audience engagement.
  4. Smart appliances.
  5. Human Resource management.
  6. Telematics.
  7. Security

 

How geofencing works?

  • To make use of geofencing, an administrator or developer must first establish a virtual boundary around a specified location in GPS- or RFID-enabled software.
  • This virtual geofence will then trigger a response when an authorized device enters or exits that area, as specified by the administrator or developer.

 

Is it being used now?

  • Kerala was one of the first States to use geo-fencing to track COVID-19 cases.
  • On March 29, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) shared a standard operating procedure (SOP) with all telecom service providers regarding the application called COVID-19 Quarantine Alert System (CQAS).
  • The system will collate phone data, including the device’s location, on a common secured platform and alert the local agencies in case of a violation by COVID patients under watch or in isolation.

 

Tracking COVID-19 patients

  • The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has shared a standard operating procedure (SOP) with all telecom service providers regarding the application called COVID-19 Quarantine Alert System (CQAS).
  • The government has tested this application which triggers e-mails and SMS alerts to an authorised government agency if a person has jumped quarantine or escaped from isolation, based on the person’s mobile phone’s cell tower location.
  • The CQAS will prepare a list of mobile numbers, segregating them on the basis of telecom service providers, and the location data provided by the companies will be run on the application to create geo-fencing.

 

Details:

  • The States have been asked to seek the approval of their Home Secretaries under the provisions of Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, for the specified mobile phone numbers to request the DoT to provide information by email or SMS in case of violation of “geo-fencing”.
  • The particular provision under the Act, amended multiple times since 1885, authorises the State or the Centre to access information of a user’s phone data in case of “occurrence of any public emergency or in the interest of the public safety.”
  • Kerala was one of the first States to use geo-fencing to track COVID-19 cases.

 

Addressing the privacy concerns:

  • It said that the phone number should be deleted from the system after the period for which location monitoring is required is over.
  • The data would be deleted four weeks from thereon.
  • The data collected shall be used only for the purpose of Health Management in the context of COVID-19 and is strictly not for any other purposes. Any violation in this regard would attract penal provisions under the relevant laws.

 

Issues:

  • The geo-fencing will only work if the quarantined person has a mobile phone from Airtel, Vodafone-Idea or Reliance Jio.
  • “BSNL/MTNL” do not support location based services. BSNL and MTNL are government-owned.

 

Important value additions:

  • The Indian Telegraph Act empowers the government to seek phone data telecom companies – being utilized to track COVID-19 cases (Due process of Law followed)
  • Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) established as registered society in 1984 is an autonomous Telecom R&D centre of DoT, Government of India.

 

Indian Telegraph Act, 1885

History of the Telegraph Act

  • The Indian Telegraph Act, passed in 1883, was intended to give the Central Government power to establish telegraphers the use of wired and wireless telegraphy, telephones, teletype, radio communications and digital data communications.
  • It gives the Government of India exclusive jurisdiction and privileges for establishing, maintaining, operating, licensing and oversight of all forms of wired and wireless communications within Indian territory.
  • It also authorizes government law enforcement agencies to monitor/intercept communications and tap phone lines under conditions defined within th
  •  lines on private as well as public property.
  • At the time the Act was conceived, India was still under the rule of the British Raj.
  • Telegraph was first installed in 1851 and a trans-India telegraph was completed three years later in 1854.
  • The telegraph had become, in the intervening thirty years, an important tool for British dominion over India by quelling rebellions and consolidating information.
  • It was thus important for the British to have control of telegraphy and infrastructure across the subcontinent.