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Corona warning app and QR code
Photo: Rüdiger Wölk / imago images
The Corona warning app was updated on Tuesday to include a function that makes it easier to deal with so-called check-ins.
The app can "now also scan Luca's QR codes", says the blog on the coronawarn.app website, which is operated by the Robert Koch Institute.
Accordingly, with the new version of the app, you can now also check-in at locations whose operators “rely on the Luca system and offer Luca QR codes for event registration”.
Companies and organizations that offer their guests QR codes for check-in via mobile phone should make it easier to use the codes, because in future they will no longer have to provide two different codes - the one for users of the Luca app and for those who prefer the Corona warning app.
The code that Luca outputs is then sufficient.
However, the process does not work the other way around.
It is not possible to scan QR codes generated with the Corona warning app with the Luca app, because the Luca app sends the contact details of visitors to the relevant event or company to the health authorities for contact tracking.
Since something like this is not provided for in the Corona warning app, Luca check-ins require other QR codes.
Old Luca codes need to be refreshed
It is also not possible to warn Luca users if a user of the Corona warning app later tests positive.
The reason for this is that no data is exchanged between the two apps.
"Only when the responsible health department learns of the infection from a test laboratory, for example, can it personally inform the Luca users concerned about the possible risk contact," the blog entry says.
The so-called substitute function of the Corona-Warn-App can be used regardless of whether a Luca code or a code of the Corona-Warn-App was used.
It enables organizers and health authorities to warn guests of a possible infection "on behalf of a person who later tested positive" who had not checked in using the Corona warning app.
The only limitation of the new function is that the Corona warning app can only scan Luca codes that were generated from May 25, 2021.
Operators who are still using older codes must therefore update them.
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