Like every other thing, even this was politicized in India. There are people terming the app as a "surveillance app" without a proper technical analysis[0].
0. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/aarogya-setu-is-a-...
0. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/aarogya-setu-is-a-...
National herald is not an unbiased source; it's clearly anti-current incumbent govt, but the argument that people were criticizing without "technical analysis" when no data was provided nor were they (initially) open to even sharing the code for scrutiny, makes me wonder how one could have assumed the app did what it said on the tin, except by blindly trusting the govt.
Which, personally, I'm not a fan of. There is a reason the US federal govt is constrained by the 1st amendment, and not private corps. Govts are unique entities in our societies, with a monopoly on multiple forms of power, and their oversight should be held to a higher standard (again, IMO)
Note that I am not against criticism of the app. Privacy concerns are full valid and I also want the app to be open sourced in its entirety.
“...You agree that you will not tamper with, reverse-engineer or otherwise use the App for any purpose for which it was not intended including, but not limited to, accessing information about registered users stored in the App, identifying or attempting to identify other registered users or gaining or attempting to gain access to the cloud database of the Service.”
exposing the software engineer / group that did it & published the analysis to significant harassment & risk.
One could argue that this was for data protection, but it reeks of security through obscurity, especially the way the clause is worded (including but not restricted to). Whatever the intentions, the initial roll-out was a disaster from the transparency / info-sec PoV IMO.
[1] https://sflc.in/our-concerns-aarogya-setu-app
edit: added link to the Software Freedom Law Center India site with details on the clause prohibiting reverse engineering