"This is an important step". The source code of the French contact tracking application StopCovid will start to be published on Tuesday, allowing all interested coders to go and check how the application works. "The first code bricks will be released on Tuesday. It will be a first step, other lines of code will be published in the coming weeks, "said Secretary of State for Digital, Cédric O.
The publication of the code is considered a necessary condition to establish that the application cannot be diverted for the purposes of population surveillance and interference in their private life.
The application "will enter laboratory test this week"
"This is an important step which shows that we are meeting the deadlines" on this project, underlined Cédric O. The source code of the application will start to be published on Tuesday on the "Gitlab" of Inria (National Research Institute in IT), a site that allows coders and developers to share their work. The secretary of state also specified that the application "will enter laboratory test this week", then "field test", with the objective that it will be operational on June 2.
A number of European countries are trying to develop a contact tracing application, in an attempt to limit the risks of a resumption of the epidemic after deconfinement. The smartphone application allows a user who discovers his coronavirus contamination to automatically and completely anonymously warn other users he may have come across in the previous two weeks.
Dangers on users' privacy
The project has sparked fierce debate in the scientific community. Some experts believe that this application presents many dangers in view of the risks it poses to the privacy of its users, seeing it as the beginning of a shift towards a surveillance company.
Other experts accept the principle of such an application but criticize the "centralized" architecture chosen by France, preferring the "decentralized" architecture chosen in particular by Google and Apple. They develop their own project and refuse to cooperate with the French project.
"Positive feedback" on the British app, similar to StopCovid
The British government has been testing since Tuesday on the Isle of Wight an application that works like the French project on a “centralized” architecture, and without the cooperation of Google and Apple. "From what I understand, the first feedbacks are generally positive" even if there are "things to improve", estimated Cédric O, who discussed it with Matthew Gould, in charge of digital within the NHS (service British public health).
Thus the application would have recorded "30% of downloads" in the population in a few days, and the application works "very satisfactorily" on Apple iPhones (smartphones that pose the greatest technical challenge), a esteemed Cédric O.
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- Covid 19
- By the Web
- Freedom
- Smartphone
- Mobile app
- Surveillance
- Deconfinement
- Coronavirus