Following the Corona Virus outbreak, the French government has been seeking ways to limit the spread of this deadly disease. Social distances, masks utilization, and drastic limits to the nightlife have been some of the government’s best allies so far. On Tuesday 2nd of June, the government launched the application StopCovid in order to add an ally in this battle (StopCovid, 2020). However, the results have been far from satisfying, and here is why.
In the quest “to protect, protect others, and support the efforts of caregivers and the health system to stop the chains of contamination as quickly as possible and avoid a second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic” (StopCovid, 2020) the French government has released StopCovid. It is a mobile contact tracing application, which is intended to warn of a possible transmission with an infected person. As well, when tested positive, it is much easier to trace back someone’s contacts rather than collecting and contacting one by one these individuals.
As of September 4th, the application only had 2,2 million active users (less than 4% of the whole population), making it incredibly hard to find its true utility (Bellier, 2020). Even the French prime minister, Jean Castex, has admitted on national television that “Yes, I (Jean Castex), encourage the French population to do it (download the app), but I haven’t done it” (Licata, 2020). In England and Wales, NHS Covid-19, the equivalent application launched on September 24th, has been downloaded 12,4 million times in just 4 days. In Germany, it is more than 20 million active users (Licata, 2020). So where did the French government get it wrong?
On July 20th, the CNIL (the French National Commission for Informatics and Liberties) has put on hold the application due to various GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) violations (Sfadj, 2020). The application’s users were therefore more reluctant to download and use the application. Furthermore, StopCovid has been described by its users as having “a poor and non-gamified interface” (Sfadj, 2020). In fact, for such an application to prosper, it is key that its users identify a kind of game in finding “live” who has tested positive or not, as well as being intuitive. Finally, the government’s marketing campaign has been described as “from another time”, as they poorly communicated concerning the use of data (Sfadj, 2020).
With monthly maintenances costs of 250 000 euros and with a successful purpose if at least 80% of the population is using the application (Bellier, 2020), the existence of StopCovid is being deeply questioned. It is an interesting example of unsuccessful innovation, proving that when an application is not user-friendly, not GDPR conciliant and poorly advertised, it is meant to fail.
References
Bellier, U., 2020. Stopcovid : Quatre Mois Après Son Lancement, Une Appli À La Peine.
Economie.gouv.fr. 2020. Stopcovid. [online]
Licata, D., 2020. Stopcovid : À Quoi Va Ressembler La Facture De L’Appli Anti-Épidémie ?.
Sfadj, R., 2020. Les Trois Erreurs Qui Plombent L’application Stopcovid. [online] Slate.fr.
Bonjour Eliot,
Merci for sharing the experience and knowledge gained from the French StopCovid application. I hope the Dutch government takes notice of the learning points of the French app and this blog post somehow finds its way to their eyes…
Currently, the Dutch government is deploying the Dutch variant of this applicstion. It too focusses on the contact research in an attempt to aid the fight against the virus. Already announced in April, and tested in 2 Dutch provinces, the hopes on the contribution are not high. This is mainly caused by the Dutch government’s infamous history of failed IT projects.
It is a shame there is no application development on European level. Nost countries have the same challenges in regards to this app. By combining knowledge and resources, a lot of engineering mistakes could be prevented in my eyes.
Hi Eliot,
Thanks for the interesting reading.
I must say that I can understand French people not using the application. In my experience, it also has been a major problem with apps/systems being often focused on the problem itself, and often the people who developed it omit the fact that its success heavily relies on how much people are going to use it. Lack of investing into UX/UI, is truly one of the most discouraging aspect of applications and poses a risk to their success. On the other hand, given the circumstances I believe that they had to develop the application on time/budget constraints and therefore the quality suffered.
Dear Eliot,
Thank for this interesting article! I have hear about this ‘failed’ Covid app and to be honest I believe it is quite a shame. This could have eased the tracking and testing of a lot of people and reduce the spread of the virus. However, I do understand why people could have been reluctant to install it. I didn’t install it myself either even if I was in France during the whole lockdown period! The privacy issue is for sure an important dimension and the government should act on that and raise awareness about the utility of this App. If it were also better advertised, a lot more of downloads would have been made too! Curious to see how this will develop in the future.
Hi Eliot,
thank you for this very relevant and insightful blog post. It is very interesting to hear how these apps have been (or not) accepted by the population in other countries. I am from Germany and was very much looking forward to our contract tracing app. I am very happy that they took data security extremely serious, which unfortunately meant the app came out already after the first wave. The initial response in the population was very positive, but from my feeling it did not have a high visible impact so far.
Furthermore, after the first wave many people started traveling again, which could be seen as one of the major factors for COVID-19 spread. As all of these apps operate on a national level, contacts which happen outside of one’s country are not tracked. I see that as a significant problem and it would be great to see an European solution to a corona tracing app.
Best,
Denis