Fight against the corona virus is shown openly for the use of an app with which contacts can be traced. The voluntary factor is decisive. If, for example, you voluntarily use an app that makes the encounters understandable afterwards and makes it possible to lift contact bans for everyone and instead proceed more precisely, you think that’s correct and justifiable.
For days, the possible use of cell phone data has been discussed in order to find and warn potential contacts of infected people. Union politicians want to use an app on a voluntary basis as soon as possible, which should work like a kind of digital diary. If the owner is tested positive for the corona virus, it should automatically send anonymized information to all people who have had contact with him in the past two weeks. However, a message would probably only be received by those who downloaded such an app themselves onto their mobile phones.
With a view to the numerous restrictions imposed in the Corona crisis, the social and economic consequences are becoming more dramatic day by day. So we have to develop an alternative, more targeted strategy. The time should now be used to make the health system robust: more medical devices, protective clothing, test capacities, research on therapies and vaccines. The end of the shutdown however, is not likely to mean that we will immediately return to the pre-corona epidemic, but will have measures that will permanently prevent the overloading of the health system. It is the task of the next few weeks to prepare this with all strength.
In the discussion about combating the pandemic, it is controversial whether health authorities can request cell phone data from infected people via the provider in order to identify contact persons. The cell phone is located through the radio cells and cannot be prevented by the user. When using a specific app on the other hand, users could decide for themselves whether they want to share the location data or not. Combating infections and data protection do not contradict each other. The app is open to all concrete proposals for solutions, provided they were suitable and proportionate.
