Things got heated during Thursday’s question period at the national assembly.
Quebec Premier François Legault says opposition parties, including Québec solidaire and the Parti Québécois, are inciting fear in the minds of Quebecers about downloading the COVID Alert app.
Opposition parties have questioned the effectiveness of the application, saying it could lead to false positives and testing centres becoming overcrowded.
“They put a question mark in the head of Quebecers and I’m asking them to reconsider their position,” said Legault. “It’s important that when we identify somebody with COVID, that fastly, rapidly, we identify people the people they’ve met two weeks before.”
On Monday, the premier announced that the province would be adopting the federal government’s COVID-19 exposure notification app, even downloading it during a press conference, urging Quebecers to follow suit.
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The app uses Bluetooth to exchange random codes with nearby phones. Every day, it checks a list of codes from people who have told the app they’ve tested positive.
If you’ve been near one of those codes in the last 14 days, you’ll get a notification.
Some have questioned the app’s privacy, but privacy experts have praised it. Cybersecurity expert Terry Cutler says contrary to what people may think, the app does not track you or have any way of knowing your personal information.
“There are securities in there,” he said. “There’s no contact tracing in there, there’s no personal information that’s being divulged in there, there’s no geo-location that’s being tracked as well.”
Still, people seem to be split on whether or not to download the application.
“I’m a very private person myself, but you have to do what’s best for the good of society,” said Carmen Lacasse.
Meanwhile, others think it’s not a good idea.
“They think an app is gonna solve it? No. It’s a bandage and it’s confusing and if not everybody has it, then I think it’s another waste,” said Noella Lacasse.
Experts say the app will be more effective if more people download it.
A spokesperson for Quebec’s digital transformation minister says the province is still waiting for the numbers to come in to see how many Quebecers have downloaded it so far.
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