- Internet users have noticed a new menu on their mobile phone, linked to StopCovid. They then claimed that the application was installed there automatically.
- A text giving the method to deactivate the app on his smartphone has gone viral on Facebook.
- An option linked to notifications regarding StopCovid is clearly visible on all updated phones, but it does not work in France, as explained by computer scientists at 20 Minutes .
Since its launch on June 2 at noon, the StopCovid app never stops raising doubts and questions. It allows its users to be warned if they have encountered a person infected with the coronavirus. Revealing the natural fear of being spied on, traced, tracked, the application gives rise to all the most anxiety-provoking theories around the deprivation of liberty. The latest claims that the government has trapped cell phones to install this application behind the backs of the French. The image has been viewed and relayed thousands of times on Facebook:
As proof, the text suggests going to the “Settings” menu on your smartphone, then to “Google” to find “Covid-19 exposure notifications”. A method is then given to deactivate the application: “At the top right, there are three small dots. Click on it ”, then click on“ Uses and diagnostics ”to finalize the process.
"Why not Stop-Gastro?" "
By discovering this image, Internet users quickly drew their conclusions: "The proof that the government lied to us by telling us that we had a choice", "I do not think that we can live serenely permanently under threat anxiogenic apps (why not Stop-Cold, Stop-Flu, Stop-Gastro, Stop-AIDS…?) "," It was indeed on my phone this morning when I never downloaded anything ", “I discovered the StopCovid application installed automatically on my phone. It is the rape of privacy and the rape of our fundamental freedoms. "
FAKE OFF
The menu shown in the image does exist on phones using Google (Android) or Apple (iOS) technologies. It has appeared in recent times in our mobiles when updates are made:
At Apple, this new option appears under the terms "Covid-19 exhibit logging", and under the indication "Covid-19 exhibit notifications" at Google. But in this last example, by clicking on the so-called "Notifications", a blank screen appears. And for good reason: the French StopCovid application works without this new parameter. Indeed, it was not based on the interface of Google or Apple, but on a protocol developed by the National Institute for Research in Digital Sciences (Inria). It is therefore a technical confusion between two systems: the digital tracing application of the French government and the Covid-19 exposure notification system developed by Apple and Google.
"There are two separate things: Notification Exposure API = set of methods installed by default on your phone by Apple and Google. Inactive if no contact tracing app is installed on your phone. And StopCovid = app, on a voluntary basis, which does not use the Notification Exposure API ”, confirms on his Twitter account Elliot Alderson, alias the cybersecurity researcher and hacker Baptiste Robert. In summary, “the option only works if you download and use a digital plotting application that uses these resources. "
"It's a big hoax"
“An API [application program interface] is a way of making information available through requests. It does not make it possible to recover user data, but on the contrary to make them available, ”explains Jérôme De Haro, a Web development student, to 20 Minutes . And for the data to be collected, it is necessary to download the application of its own free will and to authorize this data sharing, by activating inter alia the Bluetooth technology for StopCovid.
Hacker and security engineer, Clément Domingo, alias "SaxX", works for the StopCovid application, and this kind of rumor makes him rather angry, as he explains to 20 Minutes : "Say that the app has been installed sneaking is a big hoax. Everyone has received this notification, it's just a classic system that Google has developed, in order to see for example what equipment is available around us. StopCovid is a government tool that respects our privacy, much more than other apps that people use without asking questions! "
An opinion shared by Marta, a user, who testified to 20 Minutes : "I installed it yesterday, it was a personal choice, nobody added it to my phone. What surprises me is that, on a daily basis, we are ready to spin our data for online shopping, to use Google, to pay in a simple way, to communicate with each other, and for all the private companies that do money with our info. However, we are wary of a tool which facilitates the fight against Covid-19 and which is linked to the Ministry of Health. "
"I'm afraid of freaking out because of the alerts"
The rumor, tough, of a forced installation on laptops, took its source on May 31 on the Wikistrike site, itself inspired by the Lumière sur Gaïa site. In these articles, a tutorial in a few steps, depending on whether you are on iPhone or Android, indicated in the same way how to "deactivate the Covid-19 function".
"The reason why I did not install the app is that I am afraid of freaking out because of the alerts," says Nathalie at 20 Minutes . I also understand the fear of being spied on. Surveillance by a State is done in stages, the changeover is rarely brutal. An app can be seen as one of these stages… ”“ In recent times, people have never been exposed to social networks as much, and at the same time, the subject of data use has never been so much criticized », Adds Stéphanie.
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