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In 48 hours, the Stayaway Covid digital tracking application already has more than 50 thousand downloads for the Android operating system. The application is currently the most popular in the Portuguese application store Google Play.
A application anti-Covid also appears in the Apple Store. In the Portuguese Apple store, the application is the first among medical applications and also leads the classification of transfers from Applications free.
The application has a total of 355 comments. Among the five-star reviews, users left some praise.
“Extremely simple. It uses practically no battery even with Bluetooth on all day, ”wrote Gonçalo Damas.
“Easy to use and we hope it will be effective in the fight against the virus”, emphasizes Leandro Gomes.
“Excellent application, solid, with good suggestions and transparency ”, wrote Cláudio Gomes.
But there are also several criticisms, about the consumption of the application or the fact that it is not compatible with some phones or versions of Android.
“It is not compatible with Asus Zenfone 2,” wrote Paulo Fernandes.
“Does the Azores time zone create conflict? How could they not have thought about it? ”, Criticized Diogo Carneiro.
“Apparently it is also necessary to activate the GPS, contrary to what was revealed,” said Lia Fernandes.
“With the data on, Bluetooth and GPS on, I don’t think the cell phone battery will last,” said José Pedro Santos.
How does this application work to track contacts with Covid-19?
Ideally, 60% of the Portuguese population (six million people) should have application installed to increase its effectiveness, “but epidemiologists say the application it begins to be useful with a smaller percentage of the population, because it is one more instrument, “the INESC TEC president told Jornal Economico (JE) on June 5.
Once installed, StayAway “exchanges handshakes” with other mobile phones, sending and receiving random numbers, in an act of “social contact between mobile phones” using Bluetooth technology, as José Manuel Mendonça explains to JE.
The idea is that, when a person is diagnosed with Covid-19, the doctor enters the mobile phone number of the patient, with his authorization, in a database of the health authorities. Once the application is installed, whoever has been close to this person, and for a minimum period of time, will be alerted that a test is necessary.
In this alert, neither the name of the infected person, nor the mobile phone number, nor the place where the contact occurred is revealed, the official said, highlighting that this application respects privacy, unlike those that exist in Asia, which are “pure and hard surveillance, using GPS and the location of citizens.”
“Each cell phone goes to the server to see if its owner has had contact with someone infected with Covid. So, my cell phone will tell me if I came across an infected person, who is properly diagnosed after running a test and having given permission to a doctor to enter that information into the database, “he said.
Data Protection Commission related to the use of the Google and Apple interface
In its opinion, the CNPD revealed its concern about the “use of the interface between Google and Apple”, considering that this is one of the “most critical aspects of the application, since there is a crucial part of its execution that is not controlled by the authors of the application or by those responsible for the treatment ”.
The application makes use of the Google-Apple Exposure Notification System (GAEN), a joint project of the two companies to “enable the operation of proximity tracking applications via Bluetooth.” This agreement establishes that “only public health authorities can use this system”, with only one license allowed per country.
“This situation is even more problematic because GAEN declares that its system is subject to modifications and extensions, by unilateral decision of the companies, without being able to anticipate the effects that this may have on the rights of users”, can be read in the opinion .
Application test hackers, guarantees INESC TEC
In addition to privacy issues, José Manuel Mendonça also made sure that the system is hackers. “Is application it is completely decentralized and no information comes out of the phone. Even if a Rui Pinto of life enters the server, he does not understand what that is, because he has no context. These are encrypted random numbers, ”he said, referring to the alleged hacker who is awaiting trial accused of 90 crimes.
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