After Sharing Their Details, Karnataka Asks Those In Home Quarantine To Upload Hourly Selfies
In mid-March, the Karnataka government had asked people returning from Covid-19 affected countries to remain in home isolation for 14 days irrespective of symptoms.However, this had snowballed into a massive controversy after it emerged that the Karnataka government had published the list of those who returned from abroad and are put under home quarantine, in the public domain.
While it did not have any names or contact details, the documents uploaded by the government had other details like date of arrival, quarantine period advised the origin of the journey, final destination, house/flat number/ door number, street, taluk, district and the pin code.?
According to the official figures by the state Health and family welfare department, from last week 31,000 people are in home isolation in Karnataka, of which 24,000 are in Bengaluru alone.?
Many had alleged that the government's move was a breach of privacy and would lead to social isolation and targeting even if they did not have the virus.?
Now Karnataka has taken its surveillance of those in home quarantine to a different level by asking them to upload their selfies every hour.¡°All persons under order of home quarantine shall send their selfie to (the) government every one hour from home," the state government said in a circular on Monday.?
The selfie will be cross-checked with the GPS data to see if the person is at the address of home quarantine.The hourly selfies have to be uploaded to Quarantine Watch, the newly launched app by the government.?
"If the home-quarantined person fails to send a selfie every hour (except sleep time ¡ª 10pm to 7am), a government team will reach the person and can shift him or her to the government mass quarantine facility," the government order stated.?
The selfies will be examined by a verification team and falsifications, including sending wrong or fudged photos, will result in the person being shifted to mass quarantine.The government quarantine check team during house-to-house visits will use the application and click photo of home quarantined persons and send it to the government.?
The decision comes following complaints that home quarantined persons were violating regulations and roaming around freely ignoring government directions.?
¡°Nobody can dodge the long arm of the law. Ten persons who were under home quarantine in #Bengaluru and escaped to their native place, were arrested and a case has been registered against them at Gurmitkal police station," said B.H. Anil Kumar, commissioner of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP, the city civic body) posted on Twitter.
