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Consumer protection organization Deco Proteste made reservations Tuesday to install the StayAway Covid app on mobile phones, possibility of undue and undeclared use of personal data by Google and Apple.
The mobile application, launched this Tuesday in Porto in the presence of Prime Minister António Costa, allows track, quickly and anonymously and through the physical proximity between smart phones, contagion networks by Covid-19, informing users that they were, in the last 14 days, in the same space as someone infected with the new coronavirus. Its installation is voluntary.
Portuguese Covid-19 Tracking App Now Available on Android and iOS
“We cannot recommend the installation of StayAway Covid without reservations,” says Deco Proteste in a text posted on its portal, adding that “the decision is on the consumer’s side.” The organization considers that “there is the possibility of undue and undeclared use of personal data by Google and Apple.”
A application StayAway Covid uses the “Google / Apple Exposure Notification” system, known as GAEN, which provides access to functions at the level of the mobile phone operating system (Android or iOS).
According to the Deco Protest, the The GAEN notification system “does not follow the principle of open source and transparency about the entities involved in data processing”, therefore “it opens the door to the possibility that third parties, in particular the two technological giants (Google and Apple), make an undeclared and improper use of the personal data obtained”.
The mobile application, being based on the GAEN system, “does not allow full scrutiny, since the code in this part of the system is not public,” argues the consumer protection organization. Deco Proteste welcomes, however, the option for technology Bluetooth, to the detriment of GPS, and the voluntary nature of application.
Even so, it points out risks associated with the technology used, such as “failures in the recognition of mobile phones” and the “identification of false contacts with infected people”, which “can generate unnecessary anxiety”.
