COVID-19 Tracker technically useless – IT Specialist

Cyber Security Specialist and Systems Analyst, Yayra Koku has described the COVID-19 tracking App launched over the weekend by the Vice-President as useless and not fit for purpose.

According to him, the application does not even know the kind of data it is required to collect from all who sign up unto the platform.

Speaking in an interview on Happy98.9FM’s ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ he said, “When I heard government was launching the App I was happy and as a systems analyst I wanted to investigate and test the app. But after logging in and going through the registration process, I realized the App was utterly useless and could in no way help in contact tracing.”

He revealed that the App which is supposed to gain access and function with registrant’s phone location permitted him to proceed with his registration process when he did not even allow it access to his device’s location. He noted that technically that was an anomaly and the first indication that the App was useless.

Koku said, “As a system analyst I denied the App access to my location and expected it to prevent me from continuing with my registration. I became worried when it did not because it should have prevented me from doing so. I entered a fake telephone number with a sequences of 2’s and entered Gh.gn as my email address but was able to complete the registration process when it shouldn’t have been possible in the first place.”

He disclosed that an App of such nature should be able to have and identify accurate data to function properly and that the inability of the COVID-19 tracing App to distinguish fake from real data pointed to his earlier assertion of it being useless. “There are a lot of challenges with the App. It is not doing a lot of things it is expected to do,” he said.

The I.T specialist refuted Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s claim of the development of the App making Ghana better than most developed countries.

He indicated that technology giants, Apple and Google were already working on such an App which was going to be free and asked, “Why rush and waste money when these tech giants were already working on such an App?

Ghana has launched an internet software application to help people with symptoms of the new coronavirus to verify their status without necessarily visiting testing centers.

The app, named GH COVID-19 Tracker, is to help in the country’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.