Photo: Government of Alberta

By David Opinko

Issues with iOS

Security issue identified with province’s COVID-tracing app

Jul 9, 2020 | 4:49 PM

iPhone users should be aware of a potential security risk with the province’s contact tracing app for COVID-19.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (OIPC) released a report on their privacy impact assessment (PIA).

“With the global attention on contact-tracing apps during the COVID-19 pandemic, I prioritized my office’s review of ABTraceTogether and took the additional step of publishing this report in the interests of transparency.

“While I am not in a position to endorse a particular technology solution, we found Alberta Health was mindful of privacy and security in deploying the app,” said Information and Privacy Commissioner Jill Clayton.

The issue is specifically with the iOS version of the app.

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Since it has to run in the foreground of Apple devices, your device must remain unlocked at all times for it to work.

Clayton says this “significantly increases risk in case of theft or loss.”

The PIA continues to state that the risk is even greater for employees in the healthcare sector who have an obligation to safeguard health or personal information.

“For employers that provide employees with devices or allow employees to use their own devices for work purposes, and those devices store or otherwise make accessible health or personal information (e.g. email or cloud service portals), the risk for running the app on Apple devices represents a potential contravention for failure to safeguard under Alberta’s privacy laws.”

Alberta Health has accepted the findings of the report, meaning it is taking steps to protect privacy.

The full PIA report can be found here.