France has publicly acknowledged the need of reducing privacy restrictions in the wake of COVID-19.
It is calling on tech industry giants Apple and Google to weaken their privacy protections specifically related to digital contact tracing in order for new solutions to be found to combat the spread of COVID-19.
France is the First country to make the public call to the tech industry to be part of the solution by changing the way it restricts data being collected from mobile devices.
It is hoped that some kind of agreement can be reached in order for France and other countries to develop comprehensive contact tracing apps that can be rolled out nationally in a bid to stop COVID-19 spreading further.
France said that it wanted to “develop a sovereign European Health solution” that would be tied to its own health system .
Other countries have gone ahead with their own programmes and France’s intervention could lead to more relaxing of privacy restrictions globally.
Is this a step in the right direction or too much government intervention?
