Ansamb rather than StopCovid? From the start of the containment, a group of Reunion Islanders took up the challenge of developing a tracking application, both very close and distant from the StopCovid project carried out by the French government under the leadership of Inria. " We have developed an application which respects the privacy of individuals, aiming to alert users when they are close to another who uses the same application ", summarizes Alfred Chan Pan, on the initiative of the project and at the head of several companies in Reunion. “ It is a citizen approach, to communicate. It's a bit like Waze reporting traffic jams. Here, we also signal ourselves to others, ”he adds.
But the main difference between Ansamb (together in Creole) and StopCovid is due to the protocol chosen. “ We decided to use Nearby, an API (application programming interface) from Google, which makes the Bluetooth channel reliable. Crossing data is exchanged over the Internet (3G, 4G, WiFi). Bluetooth is used to detect other devices nearby , explains Philippe Arnaud-Marquier, who runs the company Media Light, in Réunion. The volumes of data exchanged per day are very low, barely fifty kilos bytes. This does not weigh too much on mobile plans ! ”.
Data erased
Concretely, the Ansamb application has a " proximity indicator button ". It must be triggered when you enter a public place or when you meet other people. In the event of symptoms to Covid-19 or a positive test, the Ansamb developers have planned that an unlock code be given by a doctor, or a representative of a health authority, to warn the people met within a time limit. 21 days. An anonymous notification then sent to these contacts, in the application. This message should contain the procedure to follow. Crossing data is stored in the phone. “ On the server we only keep one thing: the correspondence tables between the encrypted random identities and the applications. It is the server which pushes this list towards the users. The data is deleted from the server as soon as the list is released. Otherwise they are deleted by period of 21 rolling days, until the end of the epidemic "specifies Philippe Arnaud-Marquier, for whom the protocol is very similar to that of Inria.
Impact study
From now on, the promising Ansamb companies have yet to provide an impact study to the CNIL, taking into account the opinion of this commission, before being able to publish the application. Fidal helps with the legal side of the project. Ansamb has benefited from an agreement with the State. Of the 70,000 euros of budget mobilized for its application, 50% is a subsidy from the State. The project also benefited from the support of French Tech de la Réunion.
" The worst we risk is having to stop, " says Alfred Chan Pan. Other regions are already said to be interested in Ansamb (which could be renamed Ansambl for the mainland). The Reunion team received expressions of interest from French Tech in Polynesia contacted them, from Olivier Servat, deputy for Guadeloupe and president of the parliamentary group of ultra-sailors. " The experiment could even be used for the StopCovid debate ," says Alfred Chan Pan. Reunion Island has 860,000 inhabitants, with a smartphone equipment rate of almost 80%. Enough to carry out a full-scale test hopes the Ansamb team. Before going further.
