COVID-19 apps want user data, but few say they’ll protect it

MobiHealth News June 2, 2020
Dave Muoio

A recent sample of 50 worldwide COVID-19 apps published in Nature Medicine highlights found only 16 that promisted to anonymize, encrypt and secure the data they collect.

A large portion of COVID-19 apps available in the Google Play Store ask users for advanced access permissions, but very few indicate to users that collected data will be made anonymous and secured, according to an analysis of 50 such apps published recently in Nature Medicine.

The investigation – conducted by two researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Illinois Informatics Institute – reviewed a sample of apps hailing from dozens of different countries around the world. Twenty of these offerings were issued by governments, health ministries or other official sources.

The...

Today's Sponsors

Today's Sponsor