Since COVID-19 swept multiple nations, government bodies have scrambled to get “Tracker Apps” coded and release to the general populous to allow for accurate tracking of who you’ve been in contact with. In April, Norway had “Smittestopp” released (loosely translated to “Stop Infection”), and within two weeks almost 900,000 people had started to use the app. However, by mid-June, Norway’s data watchdog The Norwegian Data Inspectorate has implied a ban on the app until further notice as the risk of intensified surveillance outweighed the yet to be proven public health benefits.
In mind-June, the UK abandoned development of its Corona Tracking App, announcing a switch from Apple to Google software developers, suggesting the move was in favour of a more “privacy-preserving” preferment.
In May, Amnesty International highlighted security flaws with the virus exposure app of Qatar. Their government quickly released hotfixes and security patches to remedy this. In April, India’s virus tracking app was found to be leaking users precise locations, yet had been downloaded almost 77 million times. India’s government patched the reported issues and has since begun a “bounty” for bugs in their app.
Software analysis company Guardsquare recently advised that a majority of virus-tracing apps are easy for hackers to attack and lack adequate security measures to prevent this.
There is undoubtedly an opportunity for technology to play a vital role in the united efforts to contain and control the spread of COVID-19. Still, this rushed approach of app development a vast majority of governing bodies are taking puts your data at risk. Please think twice before you give these virus tracing apps permission to essential functions of your mobile devices such as track your location and all stored historical location data, you don’t know who may end up reviewing the data.