Covid-19 smartphone tracking app 'must be transparent', says privacy expert

The Government must officially confirm what format its Covid-19 smartphone tracking application is set to take in order to ensure “the fundamental issues of transparency and engagement” and maximise public uptake, according to one of Ireland’s foremost privacy experts.

“While I welcome the fact that they appear to have changed to a decentralised approach, in the absence of formal confirmation of what the app is and how it’ll work we aren’t really a whole lot further along,” Daragh O’Brien, director of Wexford-based data consultancy Castlebridge, said.