Enable backup of cwa-android for places, people, certificates and so on

jensb commented 2 years ago

Avoid duplicates

[x] This enhancement request has not already been raised before
[x] Enhancement request is specific for Android only, for general issues / questions that apply to iOS and Android please raise them in CWA-Wishlist
[x] If you are proposing a new feature, please do so in CWA-Wishlist

Current Implementation

The Android app explicitly disables app backups in the manifest, supposedly due to privacy concerns. This makes it impossible to migrate CWA settings to a new smartphone. Note that I'm not talking about hashes exchanged to detect infections, I'm talking about vaccination certificates, tests, the location diary and people I've met, manual entries like these.

Of course this data is "private", but is it more private than my Google Fit health data, my Google Mail emails, my cloud based Fitness tracker, my Google Maps favourite places, all my domnestic smart devices, my diary (which gets backed up too), and the 101 other apps that store personal information and can backup too? I don't think so.

Suggested Enhancement

Enable backup in the app manifest. Exclude the anonymous infection hashes from the backup if necessary, but backup the rest.

Expected Benefits

Migration to a new smartphone is possible without data loss. You still need to keep the old phone around for 14 days to see alerts, but your manually entered, non-volatile data is migrated.

Internal Tracking ID: EXPOSUREAPP-10053 Android Internal Tracking ID: EXPOSUREAPP-9646 iOS Internal Tracking ID: EXPOSUREAPP-11168 obsolete

deesnook commented 2 years ago

Why not add hashes too? If it is my choice to back them up or not, there should be no privacy concern. Keeping the old phone is only possible if you actually change phones. If you just do a clean reinstall of your phone (which might be necessary for whatever reason), the hash data of the last 14 days are gone

jensb commented 2 years ago

I had the impression that these hashes were somehow connected to, encrypted with, or hidden in the actual smartphone hardware, "secure enclave" or whatever, only accessible by Google & Apple, and cwa-android would only be notified by the OS if there was a match, but not perform the matching.

If this is not the case, by all means backup everything!

larswmh commented 2 years ago

Thanks for your suggestion @jensb and @deesnook. We have created an internal ticket for it and will raise this topic internally. Internal Tracking ID: EXPOSUREAPP-11168

Corona-Warn-App Open Source Team