"How healthcare workers in India fought a surveillance regime and won", 12 August 2021.

Created by a private company, Advantal Technologies... the Shield 360 app is intended to monitor and update daily work targets for [accredited social health activist] ASHA workers, but the app also tracks the movements of the ASHAs in real time via GPS and monitors their use of other apps and the internet. Shield 360 further allows health department officials to... remotely add, delete or update any information or mobile applications...

Some 11,000 ASHAs... were... left with Shield 360 on their phones...

[T]he Indian government has become notorious for using technology to monitor and track the behavior of low-income workers, including healthcare staff, sanitation and rural childcare workers... Digital rights activists in India believe that low income workers like ASHAs are being put in a situation where they feel pressure to consent...

Ashish Thakral, director of sales at Advantal Technologies says that the Shield 360 app, which will be rolled out to other government smartphones, ensures that these devices aren’t misused and helps improve efficiency. “You’re not supposed to use government devices for WhatsApp and Telegram,” said Thakral. “That’s why this app has been installed — so that the devices are used for the purpose they were given.”

... Surekha [general secretary of ASHA workers union in Haryana] and others decided to take matters into their own hands... [culminating] in a multi-location sit down...

The sit down worked — managers are no longer demanding the ASHAs keep Shield 360 on their phones and have paused any further installations. 

Yet... Sarbjeet [an ASHA] says that when she recently checked with her district coordinator, she was told the app on her phone continued to show as “active” in computer systems even after it had been uninstalled...