εxodus and COVID-19

In the time of COVID-19, we thought it would be necessary to give you some news of εxodus…

Tracking applications

In the last weeks, we have witnessed an increase of tracking applications linked to the COVID-19 on the Google Play Store. Unfortunately, εxodus is not able to download applications with geographic restrictions. Therefore, the majority of these tracking apps cannot be scanned by our platform.

We invite you to read the analysis reports generated - partly using our tools - by our friends from Defensive Lab Agency: https://forensic.defensive-lab.agency/covid/

If you have the time and the required skill, note that the tool εxodus-standalone is also available. It would allow you to analyze the apps yourself, after downloading the application on your computer.

Derogation applications

In certain countries such as France where a derogation is required in order to go out, some applications have appeared on the Google Play Store to “facilitate” their redaction / usage. If these apps (downloaded more than 100.000 times) seem to bring new features in comparison to the official governement website, they still present risks, as demonstrated here (in French) by Defense Lab Agency.

Note that Google has since taken the decision to remove these applications from the Play Store, providing the following justification:

“We don’t allow apps that lack reasonable sensitivity towards or capitalize on a natural disaster, atrocity, conflict, death, or other tragic event”

We would like to remind you that a good practice before installing an application is to check what it contains with εxodus or exodify. You can analyze it if it is not already present to add it to our database.

Lastly, note that a list of tools and things you can do to better manage your privacy on your smartphone is available directly on the εxodus platform: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/info/next/

Take care of yourselves!