India is repurposing its COVID-19 contact tracing app and vaccination website to address other health concerns in the South Asian country.

A senior official said on Sunday that the Indian government plans to use Aarogya Setu as the country’s standalone health app.

The app will offer residents the ability to book medical appointments and check registrations with QR codes to avoid waiting in queues at hospitals, RS Sharma, the chief executive of the National Authority of Health, the body that oversees the implementation of the country’s flagship public health. regime, said at a public event.

Aarogya Setu, launched in 2020, has racked up more than 240 million downloads, he said. The app was initially launched as a “temporary solution to a temporary problem”.

Shortly after its launch, Aarogya Setu, which means “bridge to health” in Sanskrit, raised some concerns from privacy advocates about the app tracking individuals. New Delhi dismissed the concerns and said at the time that the so-called flaws were implemented in the app by design. Weeks later, he opened the app.

The Indian government is also repurposing its COVID-19 immunization website, CoWIN, to serve the country’s universal immunization agenda.

The revamped site will allow individuals to locate and obtain mandatory vaccines covered by the national immunization program, including polio drops, and attempt to help small-scale doctors use it as a management system health information, said Sharma, who previously oversaw the country’s telecommunications. regulator.

COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network, commonly referred to as CoWIN, was introduced in January last year as the Indian government’s platform to maintain a unified COVID-19 vaccination registry.

A cleaner at an HSE Covid contact tracing center followed a man into the bathrooms and performed a sexual act on himself in front of the victim, a court has heard.

anos Carolea (36) had been arrested months earlier for reporting herself and committing the same offense in front of an undercover guard in the toilets of a downtown store.

Judge Bryan Smyth fined him €500 in Dublin District Court when he admitted both offences.

The court heard that Corolea had already paid a “very high price” for his offense and was receiving “help”.

The accused, who is from Romania but has an address at The Hermitage, Balgriffin, Dublin 13, pleaded guilty to masturbating in public, at the HSE contact tracing offices, Heuston South Quarter on December 8th. ‘last year.

He also admitted an earlier charge for the same offense at Marks & Spencer, on Mary Street, on June 8, 2021.

The court heard it was reported to gardai that the office cleaner – Carolea – had twice followed a victim into the bathroom at the contact tracing centre.

On the second occasion, the housekeeper entered a bathroom stall without closing the door and “slowly began to masturbate” in front of the man.

“He could see the defendant’s penis in his hand making slow up and down movements,” a guard sergeant said.

The victim reported it to the management who went to the gardaí.

In the previous incident, an undercover guard was in the Marks & Spencer public toilet at 2.45pm as part of an undercover operation when Corolea came in and waved him into the cabin next to his.

Moments later, Garda Seamus Donoghue said, the accused exited the cabin and walked towards the secret guard who was washing his hands.

Corolea began to masturbate in front of the garda and when a second plainclothes officer entered the bathroom, the accused “did not appear to be put off by this and continued his act of public masturbation”.

The garda identified themselves and Corolea was arrested.

He was “completely cooperative and helpful with the investigation,” Gda Donoghue said.

Corolea had no prior convictions.

He was married and had children but now separated following the cases which caused great distress and damage to the defendant and his family, defense attorney Michael Kelleher said.

His family had supported him and Corolea felt enormous guilt for what he had brought them.

A condition of his family’s support was that he “receive help”, Mr Kelleher said, and a report from a psychologist was submitted to the court.

The accused acknowledged that what had happened was “not acceptable”, that it had stopped and would not happen again.

He was now working in construction.

On Tuesday, a lawmaker criticized the government for allowing contact tracing for COVID-19 using multiple apps and databases, a practice that could be behind data breaches that have inundated users spam cell phones incorporating their names.

Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, expressed dismay at the “negligence” of the Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) d ‘requiring contact tracing across multiple apps and databases, instead of using a single app with a single data protection controller.

Salceda said contact tracing databases at different institutions may have been the source of personal information through text spam recently received by mobile phone users.

“The IATF has not pushed hard enough and enforced a single contact tracing app with a single database. This means that you had different data collectors, some of which may not have been able to protect the data. I don’t want to attribute malice, but some of them may have even sold it,” Salceda said.

“All of these potential data breaches could have been limited by having a single controller and data clearinghouse that was also protected and audited,” he added.

Salceda called for the National Telecommunications Commission to work with telecommunications companies to detect and prevent “a mass of successive text messages in suspicious volumes.” “This way we can prevent mass or extended messaging.”

Salceda has also asked the National Privacy Commission (NPC) to find the source of the data breach.

Under the Data Protection Act 2012, Salceda said, the controller “must promptly notify the Commission and data subjects where sensitive personal information or other information which may, in the circumstances, be used to enable impersonation are reasonably suspected to have been acquired by an unauthorized person, and the personal information controller or the Commission believes that such unauthorized acquisition is likely to result in a real risk of harm serious for everyone involved.

“Data controllers appear to have been unable to protect all data. And there was a lot of room for breaches because there were so many data controllers, due to multiple contact tracing apps,” Salceda said.

“The IATF and DOH required contact tracing in March 2020, but the privacy guidelines weren’t released until June 2020. So you’ve had three months where it’s been a ‘wild west’ for the data confidentiality. There was no sheriff in town for at least three months. It’s the only big data source I can identify,” he said.

“Because of the way banking is now so interconnected with mobile [phones], we should treat mobile numbers with the same care that we treat banking services. Thieves have money to steal in data breaches,” Salceda said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Wilbert Lee of the Agri party list group has called for a congressional investigation into rampant text spam and phishing messages to protect consumers’ rights to privacy and security, and prevent these crooks to cause more harm.

In House Resolution 334, Lee cited the need for Congress to determine the effectiveness of government intervention by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the NTC, the National Commission of Privacy (NPC) and other government agencies against the onslaught of fraudulent SMS lawsuits.

“It is the government’s duty to ensure that consumers’ right to privacy is protected and that they are not victims of fraudulent activities facilitated by spam and phishing messages,” the lawmaker said.

The Senate has also moved to investigate rampant texting scams, with Senator Ronald dela Rosa calling for an investigation.

In a statement on Tuesday, Globe Telecom Inc.’s (Globe) chief information security officer, Anton Bonifacio, said the company was “working closely” with the NTC and NPC to crack down on cybercriminals and protect data confidentiality.

To date, he said Globe had spent about 1.1 billion pesos in capital expenditure to strengthen its capabilities to detect and block scams and spam from international and local sources.

“Globe also maintains a 24/7 security operations center, with more than 100 people working around the clock to detect attacks, breaches, spam and text messages,” he said.

From January to July, Globe blocked a total of 784 million fraudulent and spam messages, disabled 14,058 scam-related SIM cards and blacklisted 8,973 SIM cards, in addition to 610 blocked domains or URLs.

On the other hand, PLDT – Smart’s Chief Information Security Officer, Angel Redoble, assured its users that there was no evidence to suggest a breach in its network, spam messages and scam received by their users being mostly sent via individual SIM cards.

“After reviewing these spam messages, we observed that the format of the names mimics naming conventions used in popular digital services,” Redoble said.

Leah Jimenez, data privacy manager of PLDT-Smart, said the companies continue to work with the NPC, NTC and law enforcement to help track down the cybercriminals responsible for these illegal activities.

“At this early stage, and pending the completion of investigations, we believe it is prudent to await any conclusion. Our goal should be to identify the source of these fraudulent messages,” Jimenez said.

In 2021, PLDT-Smart invested nearly 3 billion pesos to strengthen its cybersecurity infrastructure to protect against emerging threats and vulnerabilities in telecommunications and cyberspace, Redoble said.

Previously, the NTC had ordered telecom carriers to send warnings to the public against fraudulent text messages containing the names of their recipients.

SMS scams have been on the rise since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the latest fraudulent messages containing the names of their recipients and offering fake jobs, promises of cash prizes or similar scams that trick users into provide sensitive information. .

This information can then be used by cybercriminals to log into a person’s bank account, digital wallet, or social media account, resulting in financial and data privacy losses.

• Amazon will no longer offer COVID-19-specific leave for operations employees, according to internal documents.
• The company will also halt contact tracing and site-wide notifications of positive cases in warehouses.
• Amazon previously offered two weeks of paid time off for COVID-19 cases.

Amazon will no longer offer COVID-19-specific leave for operations employees or conduct site-wide contact tracing and notifications of positive cases in most warehouses starting August 19, according to internal documents seen by Insider.

“Today, conditions at the state and local levels, including recently updated guidance from the CDC, support our ability to return to standard operations and policies,” states an internal FAQ shared with employees. “High levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools have significantly reduced the risk of severe disease.”

The change could affect hundreds of thousands of workers. Amazon has more than 1.6 million employees, many of whom work in warehouses. Pandemic disruptions threw the company’s warehouse operations into chaos in 2020 and 2021, forcing Amazon to frantically hire more people.

Unless required by law, the company will revert to standard sick leave benefits. Previously, Amazon offered two weeks of paid leave for COVID-19. Amazon had no comment. The notification excludes California, New York, Colorado and Philadelphia.

Amazon is offering warehouse workers time off based on factors including “employee category, location, and seniority,” according to the FAQ, and though the document suggests employees stay home s they are sick, some employees will not have access to any sick leave. after this change. Employees can request accommodations for “personal medical circumstances,” the FAQ says.

“Except as otherwise required by federal, state, or local law, COVID-specific leave types will no longer be offered,” the document says. “Employees are able to self-manage their leave options and can use any combination of accrued time and/or statutory leave benefits to cover an absence.”

In a document announcing the change, Amazon said it chose to end notifications and contact tracing following governments’ decision to reduce or end their own COVID-19 reporting programs.

Students in the Allegheny Valley School District will not have to self-quarantine if they come into close contact with a student who tests positive for covid-19.

School board members voted 8-0 to approve the district’s health and safety plan, which eliminates contact tracing, at their meeting on Tuesday. Board member Jessica Griggle was absent.

One of the main concerns expressed by board members in previous meetings was how to handle contact tracing.

The board was presented with two plans Tuesday by Superintendent Patrick Graczyk.

One plan included seeking contracts, while the other did not. The council opted for the second plan because it closely follows the latest guidelines set by the CDC and the Allegheny County Health Department.

The CDC announced on August 11 that it would relax its guidelines on covid-19. The guidelines state that people no longer have to self-quarantine if they come into close contact with someone who has covid. The CDC also said people no longer had to adhere to social distancing guidelines of staying 6 feet from others.

Council Treasurer Steve Puskar asked if the council would be able to return to contact tracing if the CDC reversed its decision.

“Let’s say the day after a board meeting, the CDC changes and we don’t have anything in the health and safety plan that allows us to go back to looking for contracts,” Puskar said.

Attorney Matthew Hoffman said the board would be able to make changes to the plan if needed.

Graczyk said frustration with the situation in the past had more to do with quarantine than contact tracing itself. The school district wants to remain diligent in ensuring the health and safety of students, he said.

“So if we know if you had kids at school, we want to at least let you know, we think your kids were exposed and you want to monitor what’s going on,” he said.

David Buchman, another board member, assured Puskar that the CDC would not return to contact tracing soon.

“The changes that they just announced between the last meeting and this meeting have been under discussion for three or four weeks now and have been expected for several weeks,” he said. “They’re not the fastest when it comes to making changes of this magnitude.”

Council Chairman Larry Pollick said the district has reached a point where covid is not disrupting student education.

“Since it started it was terrible,” he said. “We had virtual learning. This is an adjustment we will be voting on today to allow our students a normal environment.