(Photo : Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay )

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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The French government is running on a smartphone app that could warn users if they came into contact with a coronavirus carrier, ministers said on Wednesday, Apr. 8. The move, however, would likely raise questions about the impact of tracing technology on civil liberties. France, which has entered the fourth week of a lockdown imposed to slow the unfold of the coronavirus outbreak, is exploring approaches to quit the restriction on movement through touch-tracing apps.

Technology can help fight COVID-19, says France minister

"In the fight towards COVID-19, technology can help," France's junior tech minister, Cedric O, told the newspaper Le Monde in an interview. He added nothing will be decided without extensive debate."

The minister said France was working on a "StopCovid" project that would use a proximity-tracking. He said it would be a Bluetooth-based app that customers could voluntarily set up on their cellular phones.

Its effectiveness might depend on people voluntarily using the app to document the reality they have tested positive. The app could then notify all the people who've been in near contact that they have got been near someone who has identified himself as positive.

"The application would simply inform you that you have been in contact in the previous days with someone who tested positive," O said. He said a task force had been working on a prototype for several days, but a launch date was uncertain.

French app sparked debate among officials

French regulation forbids individual mobile tracking apps compared to China and Taiwan, which tracks people who have tested positive to a virulent disease and enforce quarantine orders.

The issue has sparked a debate among President Emmanuel Macron's parliament, according to the New York Times. Several lawmakers from his party warned they might vote against any move to apply geo-tracking technology.

The French app would only be using the Bluetooth feature and not geolocation itself, Cedric O clarified. He added the app will not entirely track the user's movements. The records might be anonymous and deleted after a definite period. Germany and Switzerland are operating on similar apps, he added.

"We shouldn't start a mind-trip over how repressive an application it would be," the minister said. He underscored the application is just a voluntary tool and can be uninstalled from the phone at any time. O said

nobody will have access to the list of contaminated people, underscoring that nobody will know who contaminated who.

Tech app should follow the strict legal framework, authorities said

The project currently supports centralized and decentralized approaches, TechCrunch reported. This means that authorities have to determine its implementation.

However, two parliamentary sources told Reuters that France is open to contact-tracing technology as long as it follows a strict legal framework.

While the app is currently on the works, the French authorities rolled out an official website to encourage people to avail of telemedicine services to treat patients.

The site is mining aggregated data from telecom companies to know how people move around the country and is leveraging systems studying statistics to forecast the coronavirus outbreak.