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Despite favorable opinions from the digital authorities, the future of StopCovid could not be more blurred. The parliamentary debate on the application of contact tracking will ultimately be buried in a more general framework for breaking out of confinement.
May 11 is approaching, and with it the possibility of a contact tracking application called StopCovid. The European leaders are each working on an application that would help the health authorities to stem a second wave of contamination and would help break the confinement. In France, the project is led by Inria and several private companies, including an Orange which has been very active since the start of the pandemic, and a Withings which seems to testify to the desire to rely on smart health connected objects. Preliminary opinions favorable to the device have been issued by the digital authorities, which however warn the government concerning the safety or the duration of its use. Discussions will also have to progress with Apple and Google, at the risk that the project will not even come to an end.
Private companies, including a specialist in smart health connected objects
For the development of its application, France intends to rely on the pan-European PEPP-PT project, which has itself opted for a protocol called ROBERT which is debated in the software community because of a place deemed “too important” ”From the central server. In any case, the aim sought is interoperability between European countries, enabling follow-up of contacts across borders.
The National Research Institute for Digital Science and Technology (Inria) published yesterday the list participants in the development of StopCovid, which therefore includes many private companies. We find there INRIA, responsible for coordination and transmission protocol, ANSSI for cybersecurity or Capgemini for architecture and co-development back-end. Dassault Systèmes is tasked with the development of a "qualified SecNumCloud qualified data infrastructure", while Orange is in charge of application distribution and interoperability.
While Sigfox, a specialist in the Internet of Things (IoT), hoped to participate in the project, the government turned to Withings, tasked with the "smart health connected objects" component. Could the StopCovid app rely on a smart health connected bracelet? The government does not rule out any hypothesis. It remains to be seen whether this would be a software update for existing products or a new product.
Favorable opinions from the CNIL and the CNNum
The National Commission for Data Protection (Cnil) has rendering yesterday, Sunday April 26, his opinion on the StopCovid application. As expected, the administrative authority decided for the implementation of the app: if its usefulness is proven, "The Cnil believes that the application can be deployed, in accordance with the GDPR, if its usefulness for managing the crisis is sufficiently proven and if certain guarantees are provided. In particular, its use must be temporary and the data must be kept for a limited period ”. The Cnil also asked to be able to pronounce itself again after the debate in the Parliament, in order to examine the final modalities of implementation of the device, if it were decided to use it.
Friday, April 24, it was the National Digital Council (CNNum) which also pronounced in favor of StopCovid “As the building block of a more comprehensive strategy”. The Council thus issued several recommendations, such as the modification of the name of the application, thus renamed “AlerteCOVID”, with the aim of “Not to make him make false promises”. The organization also recommends supervising the application by a decree setting the conditions for its implementation, its duration over time and providing guarantees on data protection. She also mentioned the creation of a steering committee, with "Parliamentarians, researchers and" expert citizens ", with power to stop the application".
The impasse of permanent Bluetooth on smartphones
How to operate such an application without the support of Apple and Google? The question is a thorny one since the two developers of mobile operating systems are precisely reducing access to Bluetooth, partly for security reasons. Questioned by the JDD, Cédric O, Secretary of State for Digital, believes that “The operating methods of the iPhone do not allow us to run the application properly on these phones”. Discussions have been launched with the American giant, which owns 20% of the smartphone fleet in France. If Cédric O mentions limitations on iPhone, you should know that there are the same on Android, which represents roughly the remaining 80% of the mobile fleet.
Equally unclear is the state of discussions with parliamentarians. The government scheduled debates in the Assembly and the Senate on April 28 and 29, and finally yielded to a vote. But the newspaper The echoes we learned yesterday that these debates should ultimately be part of a larger framework: that of breaking out of confinement. What to avoid a debacle for StopCovid?
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