It is a gigantic project. Coordinated European-wide mobile technology to help in the near future in the fight against the Corona of a pandemic. An App by the name of Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing, short PEP-Pt, is to violate the chain of Infection break, without the privacy.

Using Bluetooth data can be automated, the “Contact-Tracing” (the tracking of individual contacts). So people could isolate that had Infected the contact, and the infection chain of the Virus to be selectively interrupted.

IT experts warn of an impending surveillance state. Because time is of the essence. And, despite protestations to the App developers to respect privacy, there is a Problem. Volker Birk, a computer expert and founder of the encryption software Pretty Easy Privacy: “It is a mammoth task. The Problem is that you don’t technically have the time to implement the clean. And politically, it is not the time to discuss the introduction of quiet.”

the monitoring system according to a Chinese pattern

is That a surveillance system is threatening to Chinese patterns, the privacy expert David Rosenthal is exaggerated: “such An App would be voluntary and temporary. Transparency is ensured, the App is actually on the epidemiologically Necessary limited to, anonymously and secure, the privacy in her way.”

in Concrete terms, An infected Person would report to the App, your Covid-19-disease. Due to the Bluetooth connection to other devices in the environment the App would then inform of all the people in the last three weeks in the vicinity of the Infected were, in order to go specifically to the quarantine. Conclusions on the persons, are not possible. And the infection chain would be interrupted. It would be the Virus “one step ahead”, a step.

to Test, isolate, track

In Switzerland, the App development company Ubique of the PEP-Pt-technology. Your App, the Next Step is before the Start. Epidemiologists are convinced of the Benefits. “Such Apps could be crucial in the fight against the Virus. You can allow us to live a normal life, without that we lose control over the risk of infection,” says Emma Hodcroft, an Epidemiologist at the University of Basel. The only way to test the long-term foreign currency “, to isolate, back track” to implement effectively.

the success of The App project depends on two factors. First of all, the infection rate must decrease and the virus spread to be manageable again. Then the App needs to have enough Users so that the control can coverage be maintained. Are asked also here: discipline and patience.