One of the seven apps which could help the coronavirus lockdown to be lifted in the Netherlands has been found to have a major data leak, RTL Nieuws reported on Sunday.

The seven apps, whittled down by experts from a shortlist of 63, are being studied in detail this weekend and the government hopes to take a decision on which apps to use in the coming days.

However, the source code of the app Covid19 Alert, placed online on Saturday, included old files which lead to the names, addresses and passwords of 200 users of another app linked to to the coronavirus tracker.

Amateurish

‘This is simply extremely amateurish,’ one expert told RTL Nieuws, who wished to remain anonymous. ‘There is so much wrong with this app that I cannot believe it got through the selection process.’

On Saturday, a group of nine experts said they had decided to back out of the app assessment process because of the lack of transparency, and guidelines. In particular, they said apps had made the shortlist which had been explicitly rejected while others which had been recommended have been dropped.

The government has said privacy will be paramount in deciding which apps get the green light.