Due to concerns of data protection experts, adjustments have been made that are intended to strengthen citizens' trust. A study now provides arguments for the app. A prime minister warns of blind trust.
- Given the corona virus pandemic * , governments are also using apps as a countermeasure.
- A study on the transfer now provides arguments for an app (update from May 17).
- The basic facts about the corona virus * and the corona news from Germany * can be found here. Our map * shows the current number of cases in Germany. These new corona rules should apply - an overview *.
Update from May 23, 9:10 a.m .: Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) doubts the benefits of the planned Corona warning app . "The way the Corona app has been launched does not provide sufficient security," he told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Saturday). It is important for people today to have a distance of 1.50 meters and to wear a mouth-nose guard.
Green network politician Tabea Roessner told the Funke newspapers that the app was not a panacea . "The app is important, but we are not fighting the pandemic with it alone." For example, sufficient test capacity is also important.
The Corona warning app is designed to help track infections. It is designed to record which smartphones have come close to each other - and to warn users if it turns out that they have been next to infected people. In Germany, the app is developed by Deutsche Telekom and the software company SAP. It will still take a few weeks before it is ready for use.
Corona warning app on time for the next easing? New study shows: it is urgent
Update from May 17, 12:42 p.m .: A German study on the transmission of the corona virus now provides arguments for a warning app .
According to researchers from the Berlin Charité , the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety , from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the virus is contagious before people develop symptoms . According to the study on the transmission of the virus, this makes the containment of the pandemic much more difficult - because voluntary self-isolation of people starts too late. With the help of apps, people can also be informed afterwards about contacts with infected people. Bavaria has meanwhile tightened its upper limit for new coronavirus infections.
Corona warning app before next loosening? Merkel's spokesman speaks out
Update from May 15, 1:55 p.m .: The planned Corona warning app in Germany should be ready in time for the planned return to freedom of travel in Europe in mid-June. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Friday in Berlin that the date corresponded “roughly to the current plan”. At the same time, he made it clear that a quarantine app brought up by Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) was not a sub-function of the warning app. "I think these are two separate things."
Seibert also confirmed a report by Spiegel that the government has commissioned an agency to develop an advertising campaign . This corresponds to the information order. However, the report sometimes used "very early sketches for this campaign, some of which are already out of date". He is currently unable to provide any information about the costs.
The warning app is designed to send a message to users if they have been around someone who has tested positive for the causative agent of the lung disease Covid-19 for a longer period of time. The necessary data for contacts registered via Bluetooth should not be stored centrally, but only with the user himself. So far, the health authorities have been trying to track infection chains so that the virus does not spread any further.
Update from May 14, 3 p.m .: The left digital expert Anke Domscheit-Berg demands that the federal government and the companies involved, SAP and Deutsche Telekom, rely on maximum transparency , open communication and close cooperation with the IT community in the further process . Domscheit-Berg emphasized that this increases trust in the application, which is a basic requirement for the app to voluntarily use many people.
She praised the federal government's decision for decentralized data storage for the app and for a more transparent development process based on open source , but at the same time criticized the fact that the developer platform Github only published function descriptions , not programming codes. "In this respect, the specific implementation of individual functionalities regarding data protection and security cannot yet be assessed," she said.
Corona warning app must be limited in time, EU commissioner believes
Update from May 14: According to the EU Commissioner for Justice and Consumer Protection, Didier Reynders, the use of so-called corona tracing apps must be limited in time. The apps for tracking corona infection chains should only be used during the health crisis, Reynders said on Thursday in the European Parliament in Brussels. The applications would have to be completely deactivated when the pandemic was over. Reynders emphasized that simply logging out is not enough.
Reynders also advocates a European approach. The EU must strive for a joint action with the app. Several Member States are currently working on individual solutions. The different approaches to storing data, centralized or decentralized, should both guarantee the highest level of data protection , emphasized Reynders. It is important that all apps in the individual countries work in concert.
Corona warning app: Jens Spahn (CDU) rejects rewards for users
Update of May 13, 5:27 p.m .: Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) spoke out against rewards for the users of the planned Corona location app . He advised against encouraging the use of the app with incentives, Spahn told the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND). "That would only make the app vulnerable to attack."
He wants to promote the app with positive arguments "and not with the fear that you could miss something."
"By using the app, you protect yourself and others," added Spahn. "" I think the argument is unbeatable. "" On one
Spahn did not want to commit to a start date for using the Corona app . "It is being worked on at high pressure. However, development is complicated and it is important that we take the time it takes. ”
Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer (CSU) also spoke out against incentives for using the future app. Tax benefits and the like have nothing to do with voluntary activity, he said in Berlin. The deputy head of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei (CDU), had proposed tax incentives for using the planned Corona app.
Corona warning app from mid-June? Greens call for new law
Update from May 8, 2 p.m .: The Greens are calling for a legal regulation for the planned Corona warning app and have submitted a corresponding application to the Bundestag. This is "urgently needed to increase transparency and to ensure the necessary legal clarity ," said the deputy group leader Konstantin von Notz.
The federal government has not yet planned its own legal basis for the app, as can be seen from a response from Thursday to a request from the Green MP. There it says that this does not appear to be necessary because the app must comply with applicable law, including data protection and information security . "Neither is there any need for a declaration of intent, however legally anchored, that emphasizes voluntary use."
Notz, on the other hand, like party colleague Winfried Kretschmann, believes that a separate legal regulation for the app is necessary for more trust. The federal government initially "gambled away much-needed trust unnecessarily," he criticized.
At Markus Lanz science meets politics: Virologist Martin Stürmer criticizes NRW Minister Laschet among others - and reports on his own Covid 19 episodes.
Government Corona Warning App: Mid-June as “realistic period” for app
Update from May 7th, 10:40 pm : A Corona warning app has been under discussion for several weeks . Now government officials have said that it will most likely be available in a first version by mid-June . This is a realistic period. First of all, the core function of the app is to inform contact persons of people infected with corona * . An option to voluntarily pass on your own data to the Robert Koch Institute should therefore be added at a later date.
Corona * -infected have so far talking to the health department to all contacts remember and name them. This is not possible, for example, if you have sat next to strangers on the bus or train. With the help of Bluetooth technology, the app should record when and how long someone was near another person who also activated this function on their smartphone. In the event of an infection, the person concerned can report the case anonymously, after which the contact persons will be informed.
As early as next week, the companies T-Systems and SAP, which are involved in the development, want to provide initial information about the program code for review by a broad public "Open Source".
Update from May 6, 10:02 p.m .: The federal government's Corona warning app is still not ready for use - and is being hotly debated by the public, primarily because of concerns about data protection. Now the federal and state governments have agreed to make the source code of the app publicly available . This is intended to strengthen the population's confidence in the application. "The app is made available transparently " Open Source " ", says a decision by Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Prime Ministers of the federal states.
Government Corona Warning App: Use of the application remains voluntary
As soon as a widely applicable app is available, it will be important that large sections of the population use this opportunity to quickly find out when they have had contact with an infected person so that they can react quickly. "The federal and state governments will call for this," the paper says.
It also emphasizes that the use of digital "contact tracking" is an important measure to support the quick and complete tracking of contacts . Nevertheless, the use of the app should be voluntary for the citizens . The German and European data protection rules would be strictly observed. Only epidemiologically relevant contacts of the past three weeks would be anonymized and only saved on the user's cell phone without recording the movement profile.
Government Corona Warning App: Kretschmann Expresses Criticism - "Already Wasted Too Much Time"
The government's prudent approach to data protection should be positively received by experts and the general public. However , Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) criticized on Wednesday that the Federal Government's Corona app is still a long time coming .
He urges the federal government to introduce the planned app quickly. "We have already lost far too much time there, " complained Kretschmann on Wednesday in the state parliament in Stuttgart. He also emphasized that it will be "crucial" for the further fight against the spread of corona virus that large parts of the population use the app.
Update from April 30, 3:02 p.m .: The German government has already commissioned Deutsche Telekom and SAP to develop a Corona warning app - but a group of other companies still has hopes of getting their project implemented. "We have a functional solution ", Rainer Bernnat from the management consultancy PWC Germany announced in an interview with the German press agency.
Then Bernnat handed out to other companies, not specifically named, that the fact that his group had a functional solution would distinguish the group from other providers whose stand "ranges from five colorful PowerPoint pages to a demo prototype". In addition to PWC Germany, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the company SIS Software founded from it , and the ticket specialist Eventim are also participating in the Corona-Warn-App project .
Corona tracing app: Group develops its own application
The app will be available at the beginning of May and should be used internally by PWC Germany, among others. The interfaces for Corona apps announced by Google and Apple could be installed quickly, said SIS boss Tobias Franke. "This will be a very small effort, take out one component and insert a new component."
The group's proposal is to create conditions in Germany for using several compatible apps . This does not mean that there must also be a patchwork of different contact tracking systems, Paul Lukowicz from DFKI emphasized. In principle, you could have any number of apps that all cooperated with each other as long as the apps were based on technology and there was a uniform connection to health authorities.
The Corona apps are designed to record which smartphones have come close to each other - and to warn users when it later becomes apparent that they have been next to infected people.
Corona tracing app: Google and Apple are making progress in development
Update April 29, 19:38: Google and Apple provide a first pre - version of its interface for the planned Corona - warning - Apps ready. Selected app developers who work with health authorities have access to it, the US companies announced on Wednesday.
Google will release the beta version of the interfaces on its Google Play platform on Wednesday. Among other things, Apple has released a preliminary version of the iOS software with which the warning system should already work.
In the Apple and Google concept, the distance between smartphones should be measured based on the Bluetooth signal strength. The smartphones are also Bluetooth crypto - key exchange, which change every 10 to 20 minutes. This should enable you to understand encounters without an individual being traceable. The comparison with keys of infected people should only be carried out on the individual devices.
Corona tracing app: FDP politicians complain about wasted time by the federal government
Update of April 29, 2:36 p.m .: Manuel Höferlein (FDP) , chairman of the Bundestag's digital committee, expressed clear criticism of the German government before a special session of the committee. "With the Corona app, the federal government is once again running ruthlessly behind a digital project, " complained Höferlin. The members of the committee want to know from Minister of State Dorothee Bär (CSU) this Wednesday how the project will continue.
The chairman further criticized that the government's unclear stance on a specific storage model allowed more valuable time to pass . After deciding on a decentralized model, Bär had to present a concrete schedule, Höferlein demanded.
Corona tracing app of the federal government: FDP politicians would have commissioned start-ups
Now that the federal government has announced that it wants to develop the app together with Telekom and SAP , the question arises as to “why is it once again leaving out our innovative and agile start-up scene ,” Höferlin continued. After all, some start-ups have been working flat out on a finished solution for weeks - and mostly free of charge.
In the meantime, Telekom and SAP are being offered support in developing the corona tracing app . The international initiative , under the name h worked out a concept for a Corona-warning app PEPP PT at will, their know-how now the two companies commissioned by the federal government provide . The group of scientists, entrepreneurs and developers announced on Wednesday.
In the past few weeks, a huge effort was made to develop a European software architecture for country-specific corona contact tracing apps. "We will continue to make our findings, test results and technical components available to everyone," the initiative said.
Further easing in the Corona crisis is under discussion. A plan for opening the daycare center has now been drawn up. *
Federal government corona tracing app: Telekom and SAP to develop it
Update of April 28, 3:56 p.m .: According to the German government, the planned Corona app for the fight against the spread of infections is to be developed by Telekom and SAP and brought to market maturity. The basis should be a " decentralized software architecture ", as announced by the ministries for health, home affairs and the chancellery on Tuesday. The core task of the app is to inform citizens as soon as possible after contact with a person infected with corona.
This enables the victims to be isolated in a timely manner, and infection chains are broken. After completion by Telekom and SAP, the Corona app is to be released by the Robert Koch Institute . In a second stage, it is also planned to set up a research server that can use pseudonymized data for quality-assuring analysis of the Corona app based on voluntary data donations by users.
Federal Government Corona Tracing App: Decentralized data storage is well received by experts
Update of April 28, 12.03 p.m .: Ulrich Kelber , the federal data protection officer , is satisfied with the decision of the federal government to only store the data in the planned tracing app for the corona pandemic . This model is "the better for data protection reasons," he said on Tuesday in the ARD "morning magazine". Kelber emphasized that data protection is not in the way of health protection. It is important to break the corona infection chains, the app should help.
Update from April 27: The health expert Karl Lauterbach (SPD) welcomes the decision of the federal government to save the data of the Corona warning app locally. This was now inevitable, because otherwise the discussion about data protection would have destroyed acceptance before it was finished, said LauterbachPassauer Neue Presse . Meanwhile, it is unclear when the Corona Tracing app can be launched. Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) assumes that the development could take weeks. But you now want to walk the path "as quickly as possible, but also as safely as possible," Spahn told the daily news (ARD).
On April 30, further discussions by the federal and state governments with Chancellor Merkel on corona loosening are pending. *
Corona app: Federal government favors decentralized storage
First report from April 26 : Berlin - For weeks there has been a debate about a Corona warning app , a main point of controversy is: Where is the data stored? Now the federal government has switched to decentralized storage of user data. The Chancellor's Office head Helge Braun and Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (both CDU) confirmed in Berlin on Sunday.
The broadest possible use of a warning app could make it easier to track corona infection chains - also because targeted contacts would then be tested.
Data protection officers had previously warned against central data storage:
The use u. the talks were worth it! On the open letter from D64, @chaosupdates, @loadev, @FIfF_de, @informatikradar u. @DS_Stiftung answers Federal Minister @jensspahn as follows. It is good that the federal government wants to follow the decentralized # CoronaApp approach. pic.twitter.com/g51sEzytKm
- D64 (@ D64eV) April 26, 2020Corona warning app: Spahn (CDU) - "Voluntary and compliant with data protection"
"As the federal government, we are pursuing an approach that is based on voluntariness, is compliant with data protection and guarantees a high level of IT security when developing a tracing app," emphasized Braun and Spahn.
The main goal from an epidemiological * perspective is to identify and interrupt infection chains * as early as possible. The government had the goal that in view of the openings that had already taken place after the extensive contact restrictions *, the tracing app would be ready for use very soon and would find widespread acceptance.
With the corona tracing app, the user data should be stored locally. (Icon image)
© dpa / Federico Gambarini
Corona measures: Tracing app should be available "shortly"
The use of the app by as large a section of the population as possible is the basis of their success, the two CDU politicians explained. "To achieve this goal, the federal government is relying on a decentralized software architecture that uses the programming interfaces of the major providers of mobile operating systems that will be available shortly and at the same time integrates epidemiological quality assurance in the best possible way.
The statement went on to say: “Specifically, this means that we will push ahead with the use of a consistently decentralized software architecture for use in Germany * . This should also integrate the possibility that citizens can voluntarily transmit data for epidemiological research and quality assurance to the Robert Koch Institute in a pseudonymized form. ”
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dpa / AFP / frs
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network.
List of rubric lists: © dpa / Matthias Rietschel
