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SwissCovid / swisscovid-app-android

SwissCovid is the official contact tracing app of Switzerland.
Mozilla Public License 2.0
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Country restriction on Google Play store #52

Closed beckm-ethz closed 4 years ago

beckm-ethz commented 4 years ago

Pilot phase testing is hindered by restriction of Google Play country. Many researchers at EPFL/ETHZ use non-swiss accounts. Countries can be only changed once a year. Also, access to existing Google Play balance is removed by chaging the country. Therefore, a significant number of potential testers will not change their country settings. To include these persons into the pilot phase testing, the country restriction should be removed.

simonroesch commented 4 years ago

Thank you for the feedback! We are aware of the issue and are currently checking if we can resolve this.

rogerfischer commented 4 years ago

Hi, I installed the SwissCovid app, but it looks as if it goes dormant as soon as I use other apps. So today for the whole day it says 0s in use. Did you already encounter that?

gravax commented 4 years ago

I have 2 phone numbers on my phone. A French and a Swiss. Yes... I'm a "frontalier". My phone and Google account are configured in France. How can I install SwissCovid app? Looks like I will need an app when I'm in Switzerland... and another one when I'm in France...

beckm-ethz commented 4 years ago

@gravax It's not depending on your phone's numbers, but on the Google Play country defined for your account. Details on changing it can be found there: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7431675?hl=en Given that you can change the country only once per year, visitors, cross-border commuters, and tourists are mostly excluded from using this app, unless this restriction is lifted.

rachyandco commented 4 years ago

visitors, cross-border commuters, and tourists are mostly excluded from using this app, unless this restriction is lifted.

Who happens to be very mobile users and should be in the scope of the app.

treysis commented 4 years ago

Thank you for the feedback! We are aware of the issue and are currently checking if we can resolve this.

What is the difficulty? It's just a simple check mark in the Google developer console when publishing an app.

simonroesch commented 4 years ago

Was not a technical but a legal problem ;-) But the app will be available in all countries for the public launch.

treysis commented 4 years ago

Would you mind sharing what the legal problem was?

pdehaye commented 4 years ago

Has this been resolved, ahead of the public launch?

beckm-ethz commented 4 years ago

To the best of my knowledge, Google so far only allowed one app per country/state. I'm looking forward to check the German Play store for the Swiss app on Thursday.

Given that @simonroesch called it a "legal problem", I would also be curious to learn what legal action convinced Google to give up on geofencing.

pdehaye commented 4 years ago

Given that you mention geofencing, do you know if such a problem would occur between say the German and Dutch Play stores? Are there EU regulations that would make this a non-problem outside of Switzerland?

rachyandco commented 4 years ago

@simonroesch I would recommend to reopen this issue and keep it open until publicly solved.

rachyandco commented 4 years ago

there is also a discussion on the german app github https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-app-android/issues/478

maybe the teams could coordinate to solve the issue?

treysis commented 4 years ago

No legal problems with "Immuni" from Italy, apparently. It's available in all country's PlayStore.

@beckm-ethz Google doesn't require geofencing or restrict the contact tracing apps to certain markets in the PlayStore. The one-app-per-country-policy is accomplished by certificates. Enforcing it only through PlayStore would mean that sideloaded applications could access the API, which is not the case.

beckm-ethz commented 4 years ago

I could download the app from the German Google Play store. Well done!