Bluezone is an application that helps identify when there is close contact with patients who have been identified with Covid-19 infection. This application was developed by the Department of Computerization, Ministry of Information and Communications with the participation of Bkav and some other groups of Vietnam.
“The software correctly identifies people who are close and long enough to be infected; avoid one person being infected, the whole village, the whole area is isolated, ”Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said at the launch.
At the launch, the Minister of Information and Communications also explained that the Bluezone application does not collect people’s information, and will be released in open source format for everyone to monitor.
“This software will be global when it is left open source for countries to share; Big companies and technology companies like Apple, Google will develop together; and let people monitor the software they use is safe or not, ”shared Minister Nguyen Manh Hung.
On the morning of April 27, the source code developer website was opened, leading to Microsoft’s open source storage platform GitHub. The development team also published a white paper on the development process and some of the application’s outstanding issues on the website.
Earlier, when the Bluezone app was released on both Android and iOS app stores on April 24, there was some feedback on the app’s security and privacy.
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| Minister Nguyen Manh Hung confirmed that the government did not collect people’s information, the data was saved on the phone. Photo: MIC . |
Duong Ngoc Thai, a security engineer who works at Google, said that there was a flaw on the Bluezone software personal page, and the vulnerability was reported to the developer.
Responding to the feedback on security, the Computerization Department representative said that during the construction process, they worked online with representatives of Google and Apple, similar application development group in the world, SafePaths of MIT, USA to discuss issues.
Before being officially published, the application has been evaluated by many functional units, including the Computerization Department, Information Security Department of the Ministry of Information and Communications; representative of Department of Cyber Security and Hi-tech Crime Prevention of Ministry of Public Security.
The Computerization Department and the development team sent invitations to more than 100 experts to join in the review and use. The software will be constantly updated based on expert advice.
“Vietnam is one of the few countries to date that plans to open source products. This is also a breakthrough change in thinking for application to the community, “said the representative of the Department of Informatics.
The Computerization Department also calls on the expert community to directly discuss and discuss in the development team to clarify the nature of the problem, avoid misunderstandings, and confuse public opinion.