From covid tracker to health vault: Aarogya Setu set for reboot

The relaunch aims to move Aarogya Setu away from being a covid-era tracking tool and position it as a supplement to India’s digital health infrastructure. It involves a complete overhaul of the app’s core functionality, with the contact-tracing feature permanently discontinued and all associated data deleted to address privacy concerns, they said.

The app's contact-tracing feature used Bluetooth and GPS to alert users if they had been near someone infected with covid-19. At its peak during the pandemic, the Arogya Setu app recorded more than 21.8 crore (218 million) cumulative downloads across Android, iOS, and KaiOS platforms, according to government data.

In its new avatar, the app will focus on secure medical history management, with functionalities such as smart reports and appointment reminders, helping users to seamlessly create and link their 14-digit unique Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) identity using Aadhaar-based authentication.

The revamped app will allow users to digitally store and access prescriptions, lab reports, and discharge summaries from any ABDM-enabled hospital. It will also integrate services such as doctor appointments via e-Sanjeevani, teleconsultations, and facilitate access to nearby blood banks. ABDM, or Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, is the government's flagship scheme that aims to create a national digital health ecosystem.

Currently, there are around 17 private sector ABDM-enabled healthcare apps, including Bajaj Finserv Health, Paytm, Ekacare, and Driefcase. Aarogya Setu app, launched in April 2020 helped track Covid-19 infections and facilitate vaccine bookings through CoWIN integration.

“The new avatar of Aarogya Setu follows the National Health Data Management Policy, ensuring all data sharing is strictly consent-based. The app ensures that sensitive documents are stored in a government-approved, encrypted environment where records can only be accessed by healthcare providers with the user's explicit digital approval,” the official said.

India’s National Health Authority (NHA) is the nodal agency implementing the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), the digital backbone that connects various stakeholders of the healthcare ecosystem. As of March 2026, over 86.61 crore ABHA accounts have been created, and around 90.55 crore health records have been digitally linked.

Queries emailed to the ministry of health and family welfare ministry remained unanswered till press time.

Indu Bhushan, the former chief executive officer of the NHA under whom Aarogya Setu was originally developed, said, “The transformation of Aarogya Setu into a dedicated health application is a highly innovative and strategic move. By repurposing Aarogya Setu, the government is effectively utilizing its status as one of the world's most downloaded health apps. This pre-existing reach provides a significant advantage for expanding the adoption of the ABDM, which is facing adoption challenges at present. Repurposing a familiar app helps overcome these hurdles.”

"Giving ABHA IDs is only a start. Unless an ABHA ID is linked to medical records, it doesn't serve a purpose. Linking health records within the app allows doctors to access a complete view of a patient's medical history. This eliminates the need for patients to carry physical copies, benefiting both patients and healthcare providers,” added Bhushan, who is a visiting faculty at Johns Hopkins University, United States.

The government has been leveraging technology to help improve public healthcare in the country. A recent case in point being NHA launching a free digital platform—-eSushrut@Clinic— specifically designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) for small and mid-sized medical facilities to support doctors in clinical decisions regarding patient diagnosis and treatment plans and integrating them with the ABDM ecosystem, as reported by Mint.

Commenting on concerns about data security, particularly in light of past incidents such as the AIIMS data breach, Bhushan said that data sharing is entirely based on user consent.

“Importantly, the data is not centralized in a single government repository; it remains where it was originally generated, such as within a hospital's system, but is now digitally linked to the individual's ABHA ID. Also, the government has implemented all necessary precautions to ensure compliance with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act," he added.

“Digital systems prevent medical errors. For instance- mothers can ensure their child isn't over-vaccinated and ensure continuity of care for those reliant on public health.”

“While breaches are corrected rapidly, the DPDP (Digital Personal Data Protection) law ensures that the government cannot use data arbitrarily; and the data is governed by clear consent where the citizen is in charge, and information only leaves that wallet for legally permitted purposes with their permission,” Katragadda further added.

"India's digital health adoption is accelerating," says Vikalp Sahni, founder and chief executive of Eka.care. “Driven by ABDM, the public sector has seen a surge in non-clinical use cases, while clinical data digitization and AI-native tools like medical scribes are now reducing adoption friction.”

Sahni said that privacy is foundational, not an afterthought. Built on a privacy-by-design framework and aligned with DPDP and ABDM standards, Ekacare features a Secret Locker with device-level end-to-end encryption. “This ensures health records remain accessible only to the owner, supported by granular consent management and a robust architecture engineered for security from the ground up,” he said.

Meanwhile, Shashank Shekhar, co-founder of the Future Crime Research Foundation, a non-profit focused on cybercrime research, said that healthcare data is deeply personal, so privacy and security must be at the core of this transition.

“Any platform that brings together medical records, prescriptions, lab reports, and consultations must have strong safeguards around consent, storage, access, and sharing of data. Users need clarity on who can see their information, for what purpose, and how it will be protected from misuse or breaches. Deleting old Covid-19 tracking data is an important step, but long-term trust will depend on whether the platform is built with strong cybersecurity controls and a clear privacy-first approach,” Shekhar said.