StopCovid will be "ready on June 2", announces Cédric O, Secretary of State for Digital

For several weeks, the French government has been working on the development of a contact tracking application: StopCovid. The beautiful digital Arlesian will be released " on June 2, for the second phase of deconfinement ", announced this morning Cédric O, the Secretary of State for Digital at BFM Business. It plans a first test phase from the week of May 11, with " real situations ", to assess the effectiveness of the application. The StopCovid project, the final application could have another name, is part of the arsenal of measures related to deconfinement.

The application will then have to be presented to Parliament, where it will be voted on, and will again be submitted to the Cnil for approval. The subject is more than controversial, with fears relating to respect for privacy. Part of the debate is about the "centralized" aspect of the application, knowing that all existing solutions (including those called decentralized) use servers and store data. These data are the encrypted and anonymized identifiers of the users of the application detected positive for Covid-19. The use of this application will be on a voluntary basis, knowing that for it to be effective, a maximum of people must use it, which further complicates the final equation.

An app without Apple

France has chosen, like most countries, to rely on Bluetooth for the exchange of contacts between smartphones equipped with the application. To do this, he needs to access software “sublayers” in phones. What Android (Google) and iOS (Apple) make complicated, for reasons of security of the data stored in smartphones and battery management. Having not opted for the protocol proposed by the two Americans, France had started discussions with them to be able to develop its application and above all, so that it can be used on the iPhone and on smartphones equipped with Android, it is to say, all the others. Negotiations with Apple were unsuccessful. The application will therefore be developed with a technology that does not rely on the protocol defined by the two Americans. The French solution should still be " very satisfactory and can be installed on all smartphones ".

Apple and Google have made it known "that they are not opposed" to the solutions proposed by States which would not have chosen its protocol. But without giving any more precision. Only one application would be authorized per country, it must be proposed by a health authority or the government of the said country. Similarly, the two Americans are opposed to applications requiring geolocation. The French solution does not use geolocation.