The planned StopCovid contact-tracing app is one step closer to being implemented by the French government, after it was given the green light by the lower and upper houses of parliament. The National Assembly and the Senate voted in favour of StopCovid on 27 May, paving the way for the deployment of the app in the coming days. This follows the conditional approval given by data protection authority CNIL, which detailed the conditions under which the app should be deployed on 26 May.
Based on Bluetooth, StopCovid has been created by a group of French research institutes and private companies, including Orange. Unlike similar Covid-19 tracing apps, it will not use the API developed by Apple and Google, which relies on a decentralised design. Instead, its developers have adopted a centralised contact-tracing protocol that collects pseudonymous data.
Some political parties opposed to the app have criticised the government’s approach, citing privacy concerns and the fact that smartphone penetration is low among elderly people, who most need protection.
