Data collection in new Covid-19 app ‘troubling’

Ireland’s new Covid-19 contact tracing app has been dealt a blow after researchers criticised its “intrusive data collection”, describing it as “troubling”. Privacy experts have raised concerns over the app, which has been downloaded more than 1.4 million times since it was launched a number of weeks ago. Now, researchers at Trinity College Dublin have said that user privacy is not adequately protected. They examined the data transmitted to backend servers by contact tracing apps deployed by health authorities in a number of countries, including Ireland. Their report described the Google Play Services component of these apps as “extremely troubling from a privacy viewpoint”