The Kerala government has gone back from its earlier stance on collecting call detail records (CDRs) of COVID-19 patients for contact tracing, after the issue sparked a controversy in the state. Responding in the High Court on a Public Interest Litigation filed by Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala, the state government on Wednesday said that only tower locations of mobile phones of patients will be traced and not call detail records.
On Tuesday, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala filed a writ petition in court seeking to quash the orders issued by the state police chief on August 11, asking officials to collect call detail records of COVID-19 patients. While the order stated that the officials should begin to collect it, Chennithala had argued that the state government had been already collecting these details of patients for the past many months.
When the Opposition Leader kicked off the controversy last week, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had justified the move. Responding to the queries of reporters in a press meet, the CM had said that tracing call details will help the health officials trace contacts of COVID-19 patients quickly.
But in the court, the state government informed that the police department, who has now been given charge of COVID-19 containment measures, will not be collecting call detail records. Notably, the police department was given the charge of COVID-19 containment earlier this month. As per Opposition Leader’s allegation, the details had been collected without the consent of the patients since some months back.
Meanwhile, the court observed that the police department or the state government has to make a submission within Friday whether more details of the patients will be required as part of the contact tracing. The case will be considered again on Friday.
The CM had earlier said that there was nothing untoward in law enforcement agencies collecting the details and that it will not be used for any other purpose or even shared.
Meanwhile, Chennithala had argued that the order of the state police chief was deceptive and that it did not disclose the purpose for which the call detail records were being collected.