Morocco’s COVID-19 Tracking App Raises Privacy Concerns Among Lawmakers

The system set up by the DGSN ensures its services traceability of the routes taken by Moroccans. A measure that refers to law 09-08, relating to the protection of personal data. In his written question addressed to Abdelouafi Laftit, the deputy elected under the banner of the FGD, recalls that Article 2 of the law stipulates that its provisions "do not apply to personal data, obtained and processed for the benefit of national defense or internal or external state security, nor to personal data obtained and processed for the purpose of prevention, or in the event of the commission of offenses or misdemeanors, except under the conditions provided by law", indicates Hespress.

Having made this clarification, Omar Balafrej asked the Minister of the Interior on what basis "the creation of the file relating to personal data processed for the mobility of citizens during the period of the state of health emergency was carried out". He also sought to know "whether this device has been presented to the National Commission for the Control of Personal Data Protection so that it can give an opinion on the matter".

By launching the application on Monday, the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) announced that it is a "tracking application for motorists in order to be aware of any violations of the state of health emergency". According to the DGSN, it allows to enforce the state of emergency which, since it was decreed, has been the subject of numerous violations by Moroccans. The procedure is very simple: the police scan the national identity card (CIN) data of motorists on smartphones, and can thus follow their journeys and the various checkpoints they have passed through, reports Hespress.

As a stakeholder in this operation, the CNDP declares that a group jointly constituted with the DGSN services has been set up to study the elements of personal data protection related to this application. And this working group has concluded that "the data collected is minimal in view of the purpose", and that "the impact of the processing on privacy is minimal in view of the purpose of ensuring compliance with confinement measures to preserve the collective health of citizens".

The CNDP also stressed that "no data is recorded on the mobiles of the security agents", and that "the collected data is destroyed, weekly, so that it is no longer accessible to the security agents". Moreover, it indicates that "this data will be permanently destroyed from the system, at the end of the state of health emergency.