on Monday 15 June, a French researcher has revealed to have discovered that the application StopCovid – downloaded 1.5 million times – would collect much more data on the people who cross by its users, as announced during its launch, reveals Mediapart in an article relayed by The World.
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Downloadable since last June 2, the application StopCovid is supposed to allow to detect people who have been put in contact with individuals contaminated with the Covid-19. To do this, the tracing tool was presented in the decree and the decree which allowed its creation as a way to collect the information of persons cross-tabulated by the user to less than a meter for 15 minutes. “When two people cross paths during a certain period of time, and at a close distance, the mobile phone of the a record the references of the other in its history “, stated Cedric O, the secretary of State to digital.
“A real danger for the private life”
In reality, Gaëtan Leurent discovered that the data of all persons cross-tabulated by the users are collected by the platform. The French researcher, who oversees the national Institute of research in informatics and automatics (INRIA), reveals as well as the information of “all the contacts the crusaders during the fourteen last days” are directly sent to a central server. A gesture that has “no interest in tracing the spread of the virus, but which poses a real danger to the private life,” he complained.
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After publication of this article, the Cnil, the Commission nationale informatique and freedoms, indicated that the checks were “in progress” for more information on the criteria of distance and duration of contact of the collection of information. In addition, the secretariat of State for the digital confirms the results of the researcher, in stating that ” every quarter of an hour, a new id is assigned to each device […]. Thus, a contact that only last five minutes could be the result of a contact of twelve minutes : two contacts that only the server is able to connect to understand that it is in reality a single, 17-minute, therefore, at risk. “
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