The European Telecommunications Ministers held discussions on Tuesday 5 May on the contribution of new technologies to the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and to the recovery once the crisis is over. They also discussed the sensitive issue of tracing applications that make it possible to identify a patient’s contacts and the stranglehold of Google and Apple.
The meeting was still in progress at press time, but it seems unlikely that the ministers have reached a consensus on the technical details.
The importance of a European approach
At the beginning of the meeting, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton recalled the importance of adopting a European approach, as set out in the Commission’s toolbox (see EUROPE 12468/5).
While acknowledging that many countries are working on such applications, he stressed the importance of interoperability for tools across both borders and operating systems. “We should not get divided between the two different approaches (centralised and decentralised), because in the end there is always a back-end server, even in a so-called decentralised approach. The question is rather what data goes on the server”, he said. According to him, a common approach must be presented to Google and Apple, which have joined forces to develop a common application programming interface for contact tracing. This is all the more important, the Commissioner noted, after the two US giants (whose operating systems power 99% of smartphones) announced their intention to ban the use of location-based tracking in Covid-19 tracing applications.
France bypasses Apple and Google
On the same morning, the French Secretary of State for Digital Affairs announced on television that his country did not intend to work with Apple or Google for its StopCovid tracing application. “We rejected” Apple and Google’s solutions, “which we believe pose a number of problems in terms of privacy protection and interconnection with the health care system”, explained Cédric O. “It is because of these problems, and not because Apple and Google are big bad wolves, that we refused to use their solutions. We will have a solution that will work very satisfactorily on all phones, and we believe that control of the health care system and the fight against the coronavirus are the business of the States [...], not necessarily that of large American companies”, he said, adding that this application would be ready on 2 June.
It should be noted that the European Parliament will discuss tracing applications at its plenary session next week. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)