[NHK] Some users of the new Corona contact confirmation app "COCOA" have not been notified for more than four months. Why was the bug overlooked ...

COCOA 4 months of silence Why the bug was overlooked February 12, 11:30

Contact confirmation app "COCOA" for smartphones against the new coronavirus.

Although introduced as a trump card for infectious disease control, some users have not been notified of contact with infected persons for more than four months.

Why was the defect overlooked?

(Political Department Reporter Kei Yamamasu Yuri Kimura Kazuteru Sakai)

Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare is also a party

"I was one of the 30%, too?"

I passed the head of Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Norihisa Tamura, who knew the fact of the problem.

There were some situations in which it would not be strange to receive a notification, such as meeting with a member of the Diet who was confirmed to be infected with the new corona, but there was no notification from "COCOA".

At 5:30 pm on February 3, Tamura hurriedly gathered reporters and bowed deeply.

"We apologize for the inconvenience caused and damage our trust."

Regarding "COCOA", users of Google's basic software "Android" were not notified of the possibility of close contact with the infected person.

Surprisingly, this bug started at the end of September last year.

In fact, "COCOA" did not work for more than four months and was left unattended.

What Tamura was using was the "Android" version of "COCOA."

Impact on 30% of users

What kind of app is "COCOA" in the first place?

Utilizing the communication technology called "Bluetooth" installed in smartphones, if users stay within 1 meter for 15 minutes or more, they will record on each other's smartphone terminals.

Then, when a person who is confirmed to be positive registers the processing number issued by the health center, the other party is notified by push that "there is a possibility of close contact with the infected person".

The total number of users of "COCOA" is 25.07 million for both "Android" and "iPhone" versions (as of 9th of this month).

Of these, 7.72 million, or 30%, were users of the "Android" version, and even if they had close contact with positive people, "no contact" was displayed.

At an important time of infection spread ...

Moreover, the problem occurred in the midst of the "third wave" of infection.

This is a graph of the number of downloads of "COCOA".

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare began offering the app in June last year, and the number of downloads has grown steadily since then.

During this time, the "third wave" of infection rushed in.

The four months when "COCOA" did not work coincide with the time when the government positioned it as "three weeks of competition" and the time when the number of infected people increased rapidly during the year-end and New Year holidays and emergency declarations were issued to 11 prefectures. ..

Tamura apologized for this.

"There was a story through SNS etc. that the app did not respond even though there were people infected nearby for a long time, but

regret that I was not able to fully catch the distrust of those people."

Immediately after it became clear that the ruling party executives had been in and out of the restaurant until midnight during the state of emergency, the people were paying close attention.

Tamura's response to his low profile showed a sense of crisis about the wind on the government and the ruling party.

Why did the problem occur?

Why did the problem that was overlooked for four months occur?

After the minister apologized, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare secretary explained to reporters.

The following is the exchange.

Q: How did you discover it?

A: The development of the app is outsourced to a vendor, but according to reports, the failure occurred with the version upgrade on September 28, last year.

In response to SNS transmissions and reports that "notification did not come", the vendor verified the operation using a smartphone, and the contact value was output in a different form than expected, and it was notified correctly. It turned out not.

Until then, it was limited to simulated verification.

Q: What is the cause?

A: If the terminals are close to each other, the value that the risk is high is returned to the other terminal.

If they are far apart or the contact opportunity is short, the value with low risk is returned, but the risk is uniformly judged to be low regardless of the degree of contact.

Q: Why didn't you notice it for 4 months?

A: In preparation for the spread of the infection, we made the app with an emphasis on getting many people to use it promptly.

Therefore, it is a fact that it was delayed to build a sufficient test environment.

After that, the test environment was set up and there was no place to test with a real smartphone, which led to a delay in noticing the problem.

Q: Did the user point out?

A: There was certainly an inquiry that "I should have been in contact with a positive person, but I did not receive a notification."

However, the number was not large in the total number of indications, and at that time, the vendor responded that there was no problem.

What came to light was the sloppy operation of the app, which had not been checked for operation on the actual model after it was modified.

In the background is the government's "human resources shortage"

"It's a historic blunder. It's the height of grief,"

said Masaaki Taira of the Liberal Democratic Party, who spearheaded the development of the contact confirmation app as the deputy minister in charge of IT at the time.

He says that there is a problem in the current situation where there is a shortage of human resources with specialized knowledge and skills in the government regarding the failure to prevent fatal problems.

"The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is extremely busy with corona support and is not very strong in IT-related fields. To avoid leaving it to the contractor, the ordering party needs a person who understands IT technology, but the capacity is limited. It wasn't enough due to budget constraints. The government is now working to create a digital agency, but one of the awareness of the problem has become apparent. ”

“ COCOA ”

has been

renovated seven times so far. It is piled up.

However, it has been pointed out that this number is actually small considering the development process of actually using it to identify defects called "bugs".

Although app development involves repairs, it was a month and a half after the start of operation of the app in June last year that the outsourced contractor was able to establish an app maintenance management system.

Regarding the reason, the vendor responded to the interview, "I had other application development work, and even if I was suddenly asked, I needed to adjust the personnel."

He points out the problem of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare as follows.

"It is natural that the app has bugs, and it is difficult to gain trust unless it is repaired while communicating firmly with the people. I think that there were voices of the people complaining about the problem, so if the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare itself can not solve the question, We needed a system to get expert advice. "

Warning that could not be used

However, if I hadn't had a chance to notice the problem, it wasn't.

According to the interview, the defect of "COCOA" was pointed out on the Internet as of November last year.

It's a specialized site called "GitHub" where engineers exchange information about programs such as apps.

There was a post saying, "It seems that contact is not detected in the current Android version."

There were also specific points related to the basis of the function.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare also published technical information on this site in order to improve the quality of "COCOA".

Nonetheless, posts pointing out the problem were not looked back on.

Pointed out on SNS ...

Also, when I entered this year, there were a series of posts on SNS saying that "COCOA" was not working.

Etsuko Tsugihara, the president of the National Public Radio,

hasn't been notified, even to the family members I've made close contacts with, even though I've registered positive for the past 14 days

Based on his own experience of infection, he announced on Twitter that "COCOA" was not functioning.

Tsuguhara was found to be positive on January 2, and registered the processing number received from the health center.

However, no notification was sent to family members or company officials.

Also pointed out in the Diet ...

Tsuguhara reported the problem to Yuichiro Tamaki, the representative of the Democratic Party for the People, and Tamaki directly asked the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare at the House of Representatives Cabinet Committee on January 13th, "Is COCOA functioning?"

On the other hand, a person in charge of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said, "There may be cases where it is not working properly, such as not actually approaching within 1 meter for 15 minutes or more, or turning off the Bluetooth function." I answered.

The attitude was as if the cause of the problem was on the user side.

Tsuguhara, who turned out to be positive, updated the app and smartphone updates and checked the Bluetooth settings, but even if he put his son's smartphone next to him, he did not receive the notification.

What's more, the "COCOA" that Tsuguhara puts in his smartphone is the "iPhone" version that the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare says is "no problem."

Tsuguhara says he still can't hide his anxiety.

"It's too dangerous to just deal with the problem of'Android'. Because'COCOA'has not been notified as a close contact, we unknowingly have a drinking party or act. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare asserts that "iPhone is okay", but there are people who did not actually receive notifications, so I would like you to investigate the cause and improve it as soon as possible. "

Sweetness for quality control

Haruyuki Seki, an IT engineer, points out that the complexity of quality control of "COCOA" was not fully recognized in advance.

Seki served as the representative director of "Code for Japan", a general incorporated association established to make IT technology useful to society, and was involved in the study for launching the app.

"The requirements (provided by Apple and Google) changed frequently. It's quite difficult to deal with without development know-how. Looking at the results, that is enough. The number of updates was small compared to contact confirmation apps in other countries, and it was not possible to respond in a timely manner, so a solid system for the operation of the app is in place. No

further investigation revealed that the contractor directly outsourced by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare was not supposed to be responsible for the development and operation of the app in the first place.

"COCOA" had a history of being additionally contracted as part of a system called "HER-SYS" that centrally manages information on infected persons.

The aim was to register the person who received the contact notification in "COCOA" in "HER-SYS" and use it for infection control.

However, a series of cautious arguments were raised at the government's study group, saying that it would lead to the identification of infected persons, and "COCOA" and "HER-SYS" were to be operated separately.

An official of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said, "Since the system is completely separated, there was no reason to have the same contractor outsource it. However, since the contact confirmation application was a business that could never fail, in the past You may have chosen a proven vendor. "

A free contract with a contractor has been signed in order to proceed with the business quickly.

What is needed to rebuild "COCOA"?

Lastly I asked.

"I think the background of the problem is lack of experience and labor. However, because I am doing something that is difficult, I can make mistakes. That is why I need to be willing to respond to constructive points. However, if you make a mistake, you can correct it as soon as possible. And I want you to disclose information firmly in order to create an atmosphere that allows the people to make improvements while making corrections. "

Can it be a trump card for infection control?

Prime Minister Suga, who advocates digitization as a signboard policy, apologized for "it was a poor thing" about the malfunction of "COCOA" for more than four months.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has set up an investigation team to proceed with verification and aims to resolve the problem by mid-February.

"COCOA" is expected to be useful not only for domestic infection control but also for foreigners visiting Japan at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

Whether or not "COCOA" will be accepted as a "trump card" by the public depends on what we can learn from this failure and make use of it.

(Honorific title omitted in the text)

Political department reporter

Kei Yamamasu

Joined the

station in

2009.

After working at the Aomori Bureau, the political department.

After interviewing the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the opposition party, and the Ministry of Defense, he was in charge of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Political

editor Yuri Kimura Joined the station in

2010.

After working at the Aomori Bureau and Mito Bureau, the Political Department.

In charge of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The most nostalgic thing right now is karaoke in a circle.

Kazuteru Sakai, a

political

editor

, joined the