It is the end of an era: symbol of the beginnings of the StopCovid application, later renamed TousAntiCovid, the Bluetooth contact case detection function was deactivated on January 25, 2023, the development team confirms to BFMTV. When opening TousAntiCovid, users now see a message indicating the end of “contact tracing” in accordance with “current regulations”.
As a reminder, this option consisted of activating the mobile’s Bluetooth to detect other smartphones in the vicinity. If the latter also had TousAntiCovid and one of its owners subsequently declared himself infected with Covid-19, the users who had been in contact with him would then receive an alert.
A function with limited effects
As Lunabee Studio, in charge of TousAntiCovid, with BFMTV, recalls, this development follows the broader end of the “contact tracing” measures on January 31, 2023, provided for by the law of July 30, 2022 that put an end to the exceptional regimes created to combat the COVID-19 epidemic.
The closure of this Bluetooth function occurs a few days before the deadline, to allow the total dismantling of the dedicated servers, as well as the cleaning of the data, the company specifies. TousAntiCovid’s “contact tracing” function worked anonymously: the list of detected mobiles was kept without association of names (which were not provided by users anyway), in the form of a sequence of randomly generated numbers.
Although Bluetooth detection was initially the main object of TousAntiCovid, its use remained anecdotal during the Covid-19 epidemic. The app eventually gained popularity (with 50 million downloads in total) thanks to two features: creating travel certificates, and then storing your health pass.
Source: BFM TV
