The suspense lasted part of the afternoon. The StopCovid application, intended to alert its users in the event of contact with a carrier of the coronavirus, finally arrived on the application stores of Apple and Google with a few hours of delay. This delay, due to "final adjustments" according to our information, caused some confusion, and the downloads of the Catalan application (Stop Covid19 Cat) abruptly soared!
Things have since returned to normal. The delay was explained by last-minute adjustments to guarantee access to all in the event of massive demand. It did, however, spark an additional wave of fake news, with some having said on social media that the app had not been validated by Apple due to problems with the use of Bluetooth.
Read also: Le Figaro has tested the StopCovid application for you, available from today
These new news were added to those of last weekend. The latest updates to the operating systems of Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) have caused some confusion, leaving some to imagine that the application of the French government was installed by default in smartphones! Alain Houpert, Senator LR for the Côte-d'Or even relayed the rumor in a tweet… It is not so. The installation of StopCovid is a voluntary act, requiring the intervention of the owner of the smartphone. The update carried out by Apple and Google concerns the services that will use their application programming interface (API), which is not the case with StopCovid.
Another subject of confusion on social networks, geolocation. When installing StopCovid on an Android smartphone (all brands on the market, except Apple), access to the position of the phone is requested: this is a request made by Android. You must answer "no", as mentioned in a message appearing on the screen, since StopCovid works without geolocation.
A barrier gesture
Similarly, StopCovid does not have access to the address book contained in the smartphones of its users, contrary to what Jean-Luc Mélenchon said during the parliamentary debate last week. The application tracks the “physical” contacts of its user: these are anonymized and encrypted Bluetooth identifiers, designed to prevent these pseudonyms from being reassigned to people. Admittedly, no computer program is foolproof, but particular attention was paid to its design, mobilizing experts from the National Agency for Information Systems Security (Ansii) of Inria or even Orange and Cap Gemini.
The code is pretty clean, they did a good job.
Baptiste Robert, cybersecurity specialistMuch criticized even before its launch, StopCovid was the subject of a "bug bounty", a process in which hackers are called to find flaws. Five days were left for these cybersecurity specialists. They found some, but nothing that could not be resolved, even by the most virulent admission. "The code is pretty clean, they did a good job," said Baptiste Robert, cybersecurity specialist, known by the pseudonym Elliot Alderson. He notes "more or less serious errors, but nothing catastrophic" .
But like many, he remains convinced that StopCovid "is a step in the wrong direction" . Amnesty International believes that "any application that tracks people's actions and interactions is akin to surveillance and in fact poses a threat to the right to privacy" . The underlying question is indeed whether it is possible to trust the French State for the management of personal data. Or if, as some say, it makes more sense to entrust them to Apple and Google. The debate is complex.
For its part, the French government refuses to want to open a breach and take the opportunity to instill the idea that an application for monitoring populations is an effective solution to fight against a pandemic or anything else. As a sign of appeasement, he inscribed in the implementing decree of May 29 that he will stop within six months maximum "after the cessation of the state of health emergency" .
For others, this application is one of the essential tools for deconfinement. As of the end of April, the Academy of Medicine explained that the identification of contagious patients "could be helped by an application" . Cédric O, Secretary of State for Digital explained to Le Figarothat StopCovid was one of the “barrier gestures” to adopt to block the coronavirus, in the same way as wearing a mask or washing hands. It's up to everyone to choose.
