Would Contact-tracing Apps Assure Privacy To The Users?

“As the European government takes steps to tackle the spread of deadly coronavirus, the privacy-focused population raises concerns. Take a look further to know more.”

The world is fighting a war against the spread of deadly coronavirus, and in Europe, governments are taking an initiative to plan the next defensive phase of the battle. They are trying to get ready with their response to the global pandemic, and an application is one of the common strategies that they are following right now. The government is asking the citizens to download an app that makes it easier for them to track the nearest contact to the virus.

What Is Contact Tracing?

Contact tracing typically involves a medical health worker interviewing an infected person. This helps the app to track all the other individuals who have been in contact with the infected person. The idea is getting popular all around the world and is influencing a lot of companies and governments all over the world to introduce such an application. That is the reason why the brands are keen on developing a mobile app version that is based on tracking the spread.

Once the application is downloaded, it would sit on the mobile and would run constantly in the background. It would make a note of any other phone it comes in contact with. In case the user base who have downloaded the application, test positive of the COVID-19, it would then upload an anonymous list of names of people that they have been in contact with. After that, all the names on the updates list would get an alert, which would request them to self-isolate.

The seamlessness of contact tracing apps in tracking the spread from one person to another is gaining popularity. These applications are presently being created all across the world. Recently, Germany announced that they would soon be launching the software (probably within weeks). Countries like Ireland, Denmark, the UK are also working in the direction to develop a similar application. According to the report the app is expected to roll out once the lockdown is lifted.

What Is The Problem?

Well, the majority of the people have trust issues on these apps. Now let us get to the root cause of this and learn more about it by expanding our knowledge.

We already know that the development of this application is the global effort of different governments all around the world. Different countries like South Korea, Singapore, Thailand have also released their own application, which does not match the standards of the European Union. These countries created the application with the help of GPS tracking with credit card transactions and facial recognition.

On the other hand, the US with the help of Google and Apple is leading the race by making an effort to develop a framework that lets the contact-tracing apps operate on iOS and on Android as well. All the countries have selected the custom build of an app to fulfill its needs. But in the EU and in Germany a platform called Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) as a base. Even though the EU published guidelines recently explaining how the app would stand on the EU-wide privacy standards, and how it would keep up with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive, the population still have some trust issues.

As the privacy of contact-tracing applications tops the discussion charts, but it is important to understand that they are being projected as a major way to hit the nail and confine the future spread of the nasty virus.

If you want to scrape away the confusion and want to know more about it, then reach out to the leading mobile app development company in Ireland. It is time to take the responsibility to confine the spread in one's own hand with the help of app technology.