Kochi (Kerala): The Kerala High Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala seeking directions to the police not to collect call detail records (CDRs) of COVID-19 patients and persons likely infected under quarantine.
A division bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly dismissed the petition after accepting the argument of the Kerala Government.
The state government submitted that the state has been using the tower location details of COVID-19 patients for contact tracing, which is highly essential in arresting the spread of the pandemic and quarantining people who had first hand and primary contact with those affected.
"The contact tracing of an affected person can be best done using the tower location of his mobile phone. The tower dump details are not available in a segregated manner and are only available with the call detail records. The guidelines issued by the Central government in this regard are strictly followed," Kerala Government submitted.
It said that the CDRs are kept strictly confidential and used for the limited purpose of identifying the tower location and added that once the places where the COVID-19 patients visited have been identified, the CDRs are immediately destroyed.