Tech giant downplays location and Covid-states leakage concerns
Security researchers have gone public with troubling privacy issues in Google’s support for contact-tracing apps that they claim can expose users’ information.
AppCensus, a privacy analysis company, discovered the shortcomings of the Android implementation of the Google-Apple Exposure Notification (GAEN) framework as part of a US Department of Homeland Security-funded program.
The team disclosed the issues to Google in mid-February. Google, however, rejected the vulnerability report, prompting AppCensus’s decision to go public with its concerns in a blog post on Tuesday (April 27).
Losses and GAENs
AppCensus is at pains to stress that it has no issue with Covid-19 contact tracing apps per se; rather, it’s the Google implementation of what was supposed to be a privacy-preserving technology it has concerns about.