- The government wants to set up, from June 2, a mobile application called "StopCovid" in order to alert its users of possible contacts with infected people.
- On Facebook, a publication warns against registering the phone book if the application is installed.
- If this rumor seems not very credible, some specialists nevertheless sound the alarm bell vis-a-vis the risks for the security of the personal data.
For each topical subject on the coronavirus its apocalyptic prophecy. Now that the deconfinement has started, and while the health crisis is far from having its epilogue, the Stopcovid application is at the center of all attention. Supposed to settle nicely on our phones from June 2 between a culinary app and Animal Crossing, this app should allow people who have been in contact with a patient to be warned during their daily trips, in order to isolate it and, thus, control the Covid-19 epidemic. But there are many questions about the exact nature of the application and the data it is supposed to collect.
Facebook users have been calling their friends for a few dayswho would like to install it on their mobile to delete theirphone contact. "YOU DO NOT HAVE MY CONSENT to use my telephone number in connection with your application for the identification, tracking or location of my person because if you have this application, all your contacts will be known and tracked in turn, against their will ! "Saysthis message broadcast many times on the social network. So let's see if this alert seems justified.
FAKE OFF
Contacted by 20 Minutes , the State Secretariat for Digital Affairs "does not know what to answer, except that it is a fantasy". “This application uses Bluetooth, which is a technology that allows two devices to contact each other. The only thing we havedeveloped, it is a way of measuring the distances between two users, ”says one in the entourage of Cédric O.
The National Research Institute for Digital Science and Technology (Inria), in charge of the project, is categorical: “StopCovid has no reason to access a user's contact database. It has never been considered by anyone, it has no interest and it does not intervene in any mechanism of the Robert protocol (ROBust and privacy-presERving proximity Tracing) or of the application. Identifying users would not be legal and the Cnil would never have given a positive opinion for the application. "
A rumor that makes pschitt
As the guarantor of the implementation of Stopcovid on legal bases and respectful of the general data protection regulations (GDPR), the Cnil told us that “at this stage, the operation of Stopcovid is disconnected from the telephone directory stored on the phone. "This details:" The protocol envisaged is based on an exchange of information specific to the application between the two phones to record the meeting and does not, a priori , use other information stored in them. "
On this point, Olivier Blazy, lecturer and researcher in cryptography at the University of Limoges, is not too worried either. "This rumor makes me smile a little in the sense that, a priori, the health authorities have no reason to access the contacts on the phone as part of this app. Anyway, when we install the app, we will see whether Android or iOS will ask us for permission to access the contacts or not ”. And to add: "But there are other things, on the other hand, which could be dangerous and which we cannot verify. "
Specialists warn of possible Stopcovid abuses
Doubts that this computer specialist is not the only one to formulate. Olivier Blazy is indeed one of the 472 signatories of the letter "Warning against tracking applications" published on the site attention-stopcovid.fr. Its authors note that “all of these applications in fact involve very significant risks with regard to respect for privacy and individual freedoms. One of them is mass surveillance by private or public actors ”.
"Such an application will create a large database listing the interactions of infected people with others," continues the researcher. This will be centralized and controlled by an authority, we will say by the State to simplify even if we do not yet know what legal structure there will be around, and if this authority is ever malicious, which doesn’t is not necessarily the case, it will be able to deduce the entirety of the interactions between the people having this app. So basically, retrace all of their days. "
"If there are not enough guarantees, more malicious people could hijack the app, either to cause panic or to obtain more information and monitor people in a roundabout way," continues Olivier Blazy. According to him, the guarantees provided by the government are, for the time being, not sufficient.
Government promises full transparency
“It is not because we are well-intentioned in the ministry on this subject that people will take our word for it. The code will therefore be fully published for specialists to take hold of the thing in order to verify that what we are saying is true, ”we reassure the side of the State Secretariat in charge of Digital. Some has already been published, but initial feedback shows that specialists are mixed to say the least.
As the @gouvernementFR has undertaken, the project-team starts publishing the source code and documentation of the #StopCovid application.
👉 The context by @Inria: https://t.co/4poxspr2lp
👉 The GitLab: https://t.co/E4CSjskrF0
The rest very quickly!
" The governmenttells us that there will be a lot of transparency but, at the same time, Inria announced that part of the code would not be revealed for reasons of national security. He makes a big speech of transparency but it will be partial transparency, in reality, tempers Olivier Blazy. Which makes me smile a little because if I give you 99% of a source code, in the remaining 1%, I can put anything in it. "
Government response: “This is not part of the code that will not be published. To simplify, we will tell you which toolbox we are going to use, which tools are in it but we are not going to tell you if the hammer is next to the saw. The goal is not to give all the keys to those who would try to hack us. "A bit like the magician shows you his hat before taking out a rabbit," laughs our researcher in cryptography.
Timing that raises questions
Another subject of concernspecialists, the calendar put forward by the government for the start of the app, tighter than jeans after Sunday meal with in-laws. "Indeed, we have to do in two months what is normally done in a year and a half",we admit in Bercy. With all the risks that this entails. Olivier Blazy explains them to us.
“We don't even have the entire source code, which means that we just can't start our work. We will then find ourselves having to do in a week, a week and a half, which would normally take much longer. Finally, they are supposed to fix all of this. In terms of deadlines, this is not reasonable at all. We have the impression that we are going to play the sorcerer's apprentices. However, if a person's personal data is leaked due to an application error, it can have quite dramatic effects. "Mistrust therefore that the creature does not escape its creator.
A final - crucial - question remains: that of the effective utility of such an application. The big problem, concludes the lecturer in computer science, is that there are no studies showing that this type of application is relevant. On the contrary, tests that have been done in Iceland for example show that they are not used for much. The app was rather well adopted since about 40% of the population used it and the conclusions of the health services, it is to say that it was useless. aIdem in Singpour, where they are switching to a mandatory QR code.The risk to our privacy is not worth the little health benefits that there will be next to it. "
However, for Stopcovid to really be able to control the epidemic, the journal Science suggests that 60% of the population should install it on their phone. As we can see, perhaps even more than the design of the app itself for computer scientists, the difficulty for the government will be to convince a majority of French people to join it en masse.
Society
Coronavirus: The StopCovid application will be ready on June 2, without Apple or Google
Society
Coronavirus: The StopCovid tracking app project continues its cahin-caha race
- Covid 19
- Deconfinement
- Society
- Coronavirus
- Digital
- High-Tech
- Mobile app