Coronavirus: digital tracing causes heated debate in France

Text by: Anthony Lattier Follow

In France, the Secretary of State for Digital unveils the project called StopCovid, a smartphone application whose purpose is to "limit the distribution of Covid-19" during deconfinement. This use of digital technologies in the fight against the coronavirus provokes a lively debate in the political class, where the positions go beyond traditional cleavages.

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It would be one of the tools to allow deconfinement. While for several days the government has not closed the door to resorting to digital tracing of citizens to avoid a new dissemination of the Covid-19, the Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O unveils his project in the newspaper Le Monde : he s 'is to create a smartphone application to enable to "identify the chains of transmission" of the virus.

The principle ? " Warn people who have been in contact with a patient who tested positive so that they get tested themselves, " explains Cédric O. The application would not work by GPS but by Bluetooth, it would be downloaded voluntarily. The government promises that there will be no tracking of trips and that " the data would be anonymous and erased after a given period ". " We must beware of the fantasy of a liberticide application ," insists the Secretary of State for Digital.

" A false good idea "

The word of the government is also cautious. " The government is only working and has not adopted a position " concerning the deployment of this application, which would be " one tool among others ", alongside notably the testing of the population and the generalization of masks. Sibeth Ndiaye is walking on eggs while the use of this digital technology raises many concerns and questions. Positions are increasing to warn against possible attacks on public freedoms.

" It is a false good idea," says the head of La France rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon. [Tracing] is useless if everyone is not tested, if everyone does not have a mobile phone or if we live in an area that is not covered [by the network]. None of this is possible today. On the other hand, in terms of individual freedoms and medical confidentiality, it is pure and simple disaster! "Like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, several political figures also cite the case of Singapore - where the government has implemented a tracing policy, before resolving confinement - as proof of the ineffectiveness of" tracking "

"A way without return"

This reluctance is expressed even in the entourage of President Emmanuel Macron and the majority. " It is wrong to think that Big Brother can save us ," warns the MEP of the centrist Renew Europe group Stéphane Séjourné in Le Parisien . " Digital tracing," he adds, " can only be part of a more global palette, not the silver bullet ."

► Read also: Coronavirus: individual freedoms undermined by emergency measures in Europe

Even more virulent, the deputy La République en Marche de la Vienne Sacha Houlié said that he was " deeply hostile " to the current reflection. Not convinced by the guarantees put forward by the Secretary of State Cedric O, it calls on the government not to proceed with this project: "I am deeply hostile. It would be a way of no return. If we engaged in this geolocalized monitoring, whatever we are told, there would be no reverse path in so-called normal time ”.

"Not a scandal" for Yannick Jadot

" History shows that when the state puts in place emergency measures, it never completely withdraws them once the exception is over, " ecologist Yannick Jadot. But the MEP does not close the door to technological tracing: " Using digital as one of the tools to fight the pandemic does not seem to me to be a scandal ", he judges, calling for the installation of safeguards so as not to see the advent of a " mass surveillance system ".

The leader of the Republican deputies in the National Assembly Damien Abad also agrees in principle. “ If an application should see the light of day, it should only be done after the generalization of tests and the use of masks. And it should only have the sole objective of finding another freedom, that of coming and going, ”he believes. This opinion is not shared by all right-wing deputies. A " converging position " is therefore being developed.

If by chance the StopCovid application were deployed, elected officials from all sides call for the government's project to be previously discussed in Parliament. " It is important that these measures are not taken on the sly, " said judge Damien Abad. " It is the Parliament which is the guarantor of fundamental freedoms ," said Sacha Houlié.

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