France decides against Apple and Google

FRANCE is to start testing a contact-tracing app next week running on a similar architecture to the UK’s current NHS version after both countries rejected Google and Apple solutions.

Like the NHS, France decided to shun the template Apple and Google created for health services to base their apps on earlier this year. All the data is stored and decisions made on the phone – a system the companies have said is better for security and privacy.

Both France and the UK have argued their systems will allow governments to use anonymous data from the apps to track infection hotspots and learn more about how coronavirus spreads.

Cédric O, France’s junior digital minister, said if the testing phase went as planned, a parliamentary debate on the app could be held “in the week of May 25” to allow for a launch from June 2.

Cedric O said that the government had declined digital solutions offered by Google and Apple to develop the app, citing “a certain number of issues in terms of privacy and interconnection with the health system”.

“It is due to these concerns, and not because we see Apple and Google as big bad wolves, that we refused to use their technology,” O said. “The fight against coronavirus is the role of the states, not necessarily that of US digital giants.”

France and Britain appear increasingly isolated in their centralised approach to contact tracing.

A pan-European initiative to develop a common framework, PEPP-PT, has been abandoned by Switzerland and Spain over where data is stored.

Germany ditched its attempt to build a centralised app after it was unable to get Bluetooth permissions from Apple. It has now reverted to building a decentralised version along the lines of the Apple and Google model, joining other countries such as Italy.