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Contact tracking via QR code: Should be managed centrally in Germany soon
Photo: Bernd Wüstneck / dpa
The head of the Federal Chancellery, Helge Braun (CDU), advocates a quick decision on a corona contact tracking solution such as the Luca app.
Such an app could be launched on March 22nd, Braun said on Tuesday at an event organized by the software company Microsoft.
From then on, outdoor dining is to be reopened in regions where the seven-day incidence is below 50.
Braun emphasized that the federal government was ready to finance the infrastructure for the digital networking of the health authorities in Germany.
However, Braun did not specifically want to commit to the Luca system for the contact tracking apps discussed.
It had been agreed with the countries that they should agree on a system if possible.
"We would be very happy if the federal states had as uniform a solution as possible that we can quickly connect to the health authorities - so no interface clutter," said Braun.
The German trade association was also in favor of a uniform solution.
The alliance "Wir für Digitisierung", made up of programmers, startups and interest groups, holds against it: Even with different apps, an »interface jumble« can be avoided, since several apps can easily use the same interface.
A statement from the initiative states: »It doesn't matter which app a company uses to record digital contact data.
It is important that the health department can access it via a uniform, open interface. "
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is the first state to advance
On Wednesday, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was the first federal state to announce that it had acquired the license for the Luca app.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's digitization minister Christian level calls the app "an important building block in further opening steps" because it enables "reliable and data protection-compliant contact tracking".
In Thuringia, too, a decision on the use of the Luca app is to be made in the coming week.
A model test with the app is currently running in the city of Jena.
With apps like the Luca app, people can check in at events or visits to restaurants using a QR code.
If necessary, you can be informed about a corona outbreak - without having to evaluate handwritten lists with contact details.
In other countries, such as England, so-called "cluster tracking" is possible via the official Corona warning app.
In Germany, the Corona warning app does not have this function, even if experts repeatedly ask for it.
Criticism from privacy advocates and competitors
The Luca app is criticized because it was not developed open-source.
How the encryption of the data and the connection to the health authorities should work is therefore not publicly visible or verifiable.
Left-wing MP Anke Domscheit-Berg calls the app “intransparent”: “For me, the Luca app is not trustworthy,” she writes on Twitter.
Meanwhile, competitors of the Luca app criticize the opaque award procedure and the focus of many politicians on the one app.
"I don't like the fact that everyone only talks about Luca," said Jan Kus from the "We for Digitization" initiative to SPIEGEL.
He proposes a platform to which all providers can dock in order to send collected data to the health authorities.
The Luca app became known, among other things, through an appearance by Smudo, singer of the Fantastischen Vier, and one of the developers at »Anne Will«.
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