Massachusetts MassNotify Android COVID App Forced By Google

According to various reports from users, Google is force installing Massachusetts Covid-19 tracking apps to users without any consent. Also, the users are unable to open the app and view it on Google Play Store.

Based on a review written by a user on Google Play Store, “This installed silently on my daughter’s phone without consent or notification. She cannot have installed it herself since we use Family Link and we have to approve all app installs. I have no idea how they pulled this off, but it had to involve either Google, or Samsung, or both.”

“Normal apps can’t just install themselves. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but this doesn’t count as “voluntary”. We need information, and we need it now, folks.”

The MassNotify is actually a Covid-19 contact tracing app which allows users who opted into Android’s ‘Covid-19 Exposure Notifications’ feature to be warned when exposed to virus.

While choosing to opt this feature, users are required to select their country, and state, from which they need to receive notifications from, and the related state based app will be installed on their device.

However, the users are reposting that the app is installed on their android device, even when they chosen not to enable the Android Exposure Notification feature.

Even many people have to say that they are unable to find any icon of the app, even they found no sign when they searched for ‘MassNotify’ in Google Play Store, and this simply indicate that the app can’t be uninstalled, which also means it’s a force-installed app.

But, instead of that, users need to navigate to MassNotify Google Play Store Url from app’s internal name, and uninstall it from there.