Government warns NL-Alert app to remove due to data breach

[scorpionv]

Content source

https://www.mbs.news/c/2020/04/government-warns-nl-alert-app-to-remove-due-to-data-breach-tablets-and-phones-news.html

The Ministry of Justice and Security warns that users of the NL-Alert app should remove it from their smartphone. The app is affected by a data breach that allowed an external service to collect location and other personal information.

The ministry has requested that external service to stop collecting data via the app and destroy the data that has already been collected. In addition to the location data, the NL-Alert app released information about the operating system and other installed apps to that third party, without users’ permission. The ministry does not name that service by name.

There will be an update within a few days that will remove the relevant service and the Ministry is also talking about measures to ‘set up the app in a different, safer way’, but until then the advice is for users to remove the app. In total, the app was downloaded by 58,000 iOS and Android users.

The Ministry has reported at the Dutch Data Protection Authority. The NL-Alert app is published in early March. It is not about the NL-Alert emergency notifications on smartphones, which work on the basis of cell broadcast. The app is an addition to this.

 

[scorpionv]

I should add, NL-Alert, this is news from the Netherlands. I can imagine the NL abbreviation is unknown to some of you guys.

Well, this is perfect timing, just when the government wants us to buy their safe and privacy respecting Covid-19 app.

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

I don't have much hope for our government in IT projects. They all cost too much and/or fail.
The Covid 19 app hackathon was hilarious, all proposed apps failed miserably.

 

[scorpionv]

I don't have much hope for our government in IT projects. They all cost too much and/or fail.
The Covid 19 app hackathon was hilarious, all proposed apps failed miserably.

In my opinion:
The scale of the projects is often too ambitious, and the end goal often changes through time. Divide and conquer could help, cut the big project into small projects. However, to get the most from the previous small project, the government should hire a solid core of IT professionals, and let them work with only a few trusted, preferably local, suppliers. That improves continuity, and prevents reinventing the wheel over and over again. But that is wishfull thinking in a money driven economy.