Days after forming special teams to trace and monitor those under home quarantine across the state, the Twitter handle of the Karnataka health department tweeted out a link to excel sheets containing district-wise details of those under home quarantine.
In a major faux pas and purportedly for the benefit of people to “find who in their apartment or neighbourhood is in Home Quarantine”, the health department released the exact addresses with house numbers, street names, ports of entry and exit, date of journey and a few other details online.
The Quint was able to download one of the excel sheets shared by the government. It had details of the person’s date of arrival, date until quarantined, travel history and address.
Twitterati instantly exploded in rage as people chastised the government for sharing the private information of citizens without their consent, opening them up to bias and discrimination in their neighbourhoods.
“I can't believe it. Someone has leaked the excel sheet of all the people stamped in Bangalore for self isolation with addresses. How can you release personal info of people!! This is what our government will do with NCR and NPR data too!!! (sic),” said one Bengaluru citizen, reacting to the news on Twitter.
Data Incomplete?
A senior executive a PR firm, who had gone on self-quarantine and a government-prescribed home isolation, said he couldn’t find his name in the list.
“First of all I think the entire exercise is a breach of privacy and would have adverse effects. For the mistake of a few, details of so many people shouldn’t be put out. In my case, I was able to download this list and even after searching multiple times, I couldn’t find my name in the list, even though I was on home quarantine,” he told The Quint.
This Is to Help People , Says Minister
During press meet on Thursday, 26 March, Minister for Medical Education K Sudhakar defended the government’s decision. He said that the list was put up so that those who were under home quarantine and others are aware of the situation. He said that there were several cases of people violating the prescribed quarantine, which makes publishing the list important.
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