the entire government will be using [Olvid], the world’s most secure instant messaging system," French digital minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed on X.
Clearly they’re very discerning when it comes to their choice of communication apps. 🙄
From their Google play store page: “Olvid is the first private instant messaging application for everyone.”
At least it’s open source, so we should know soon enough how it compares to Signal
the client is open source. but the server? not so much.
in any case, if security is the concern… they should probably switch to a government-built system that only runs on gooberment devices. Will it be shitty? absolutely. But data is owned by whoever has the hardware it sits on. if it’s not your device its not your data.
French here. It is all about the IT sovereignty (souveraineté numérique). The idea is to use French solutions in order to limit leaks if confidential information and dealing with other country without worrying about threat of limiting, stopping critical services. Also it is easier to apply EU laws like GPDR. That is why all the French private company dealing with sensitive information (military, cyber security…) are only using French solutions.
