<p>A decision of Kerala police to collect call details record (CDR) of individuals as part of Covid-19 contact tracing and surveillance activities have triggered a row of infringement of privacy.</p>.<p>While Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan justified the move as a Covid-19 containment measure, cyber experts said that there was not much use of CDR in contact tracing.</p>.<p>State police chief Loknath Behera had issued a directive to the ADGP (Intelligence) and ADGP (headquarters) to take steps to ensure that service providers promptly give CDR to the police as part of the Covid-19 containment measures.</p>.<p>Justifying the move citing the requirement of stringent measures to contain Covid-19, the Chief Minister said that the CDR would be used only for contact tracing activities and would not be misused.</p>.<p>Cybercrime investigator Dhanya Menon told DH that only tower location of individuals could help police trace the route map of a Covid-19 infected person, but that would not be precise. CDR includes the contact history of individuals too, which obviously raises questions of infringement of privacy, she said.</p>.<p>Meanwhile, a police official said that the only objective of collecting CDR was to trace the tower locations as a person being tested positive may not be able to recollect the travel history of the previous one to two weeks. The tower location history for a period of time alone could not be retrieved and hence the CDR was being collected.</p>
<p>A decision of Kerala police to collect call details record (CDR) of individuals as part of Covid-19 contact tracing and surveillance activities have triggered a row of infringement of privacy.</p>.<p>While Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan justified the move as a Covid-19 containment measure, cyber experts said that there was not much use of CDR in contact tracing.</p>.<p>State police chief Loknath Behera had issued a directive to the ADGP (Intelligence) and ADGP (headquarters) to take steps to ensure that service providers promptly give CDR to the police as part of the Covid-19 containment measures.</p>.<p>Justifying the move citing the requirement of stringent measures to contain Covid-19, the Chief Minister said that the CDR would be used only for contact tracing activities and would not be misused.</p>.<p>Cybercrime investigator Dhanya Menon told DH that only tower location of individuals could help police trace the route map of a Covid-19 infected person, but that would not be precise. CDR includes the contact history of individuals too, which obviously raises questions of infringement of privacy, she said.</p>.<p>Meanwhile, a police official said that the only objective of collecting CDR was to trace the tower locations as a person being tested positive may not be able to recollect the travel history of the previous one to two weeks. The tower location history for a period of time alone could not be retrieved and hence the CDR was being collected.</p>
