France’s coronavirus contact tracing app might not be based on the Apple-Google standard

[Chris Smith]

• France’s coronavirus contact tracing app might not be based on the Apple-Google private standard.
• The StopCovid app is still in the works and could be deployed in the near future.
• Contradictory reports fuel confusion over France’s stance on the digital COVID-19 contact tracing app.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

Governments around the world are looking to slowly open economies now that several countries moved past the peak of the novel coronavirus disease. But questions remain on how to do it. Social distancing will not go away for good, and life won’t return back to normal. There’s still no drug to treat COVID-19, and some vaccines might be available this fall in a best-case scenario. And even then, the early vaccines might only be deployed in an emergency use manner. That’s why coronavirus testing will have to continue until there’s a cure, and contact tracing measures will need to be significantly improved to control outbreaks when the virus returns in a community.

Apple and Google created the basis of a privacy-friendly smartphone app that works on iPhone and Android to inform users that they may have been exposed to someone who later tested positive for COVID-19. However, not everyone is happy with the Apple-Google way of digitally tracing coronavirus contacts. The UK has already confirmed that it wants to go at it using a different type of Bluetooth-based app that allows it to keep user data on its own servers. Germany, on the other hand, ditched the less private approach and said that it will adopt the Apple-Google model that stores only a limited amount of data on central servers, data that doesn’t include any details that can identify users. France is the other major European holdout that might want to perform coronavirus contact tracing on its own. But it’s still unclear whether it’ll go forward with its own app, or use the Apple-Google API.

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France’s coronavirus contact tracing app might not be based on the Apple-Google standard originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 06:50:47 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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