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The expected Corona tracing application of the federal government remains under discussion. A press release has now been published that provides further details on the functions and reveals the partners in this project.
After it was announced last week that the new Corona tracing app supports decentralized storage of data, further details have now been disclosed. The press release:
The "Corona app" is a project of the federal government. Based on a decentralized software architecture, the aim is to have it developed by Deutsche Telekom and SAP and brought to market maturity. The Fraunhofer Society and the Helmholtz Center CISPA are providing advice on the development. Attention will be paid to interoperability with other European solutions. In order to ensure the necessary requirements for data protection and data security, the BSI and BfDI will be involved from the start.
Federal Government explains how the app works
Accordingly, the new Corona app is being developed by Deutsche Telekom and SAP, while the Fraunhofer Society and the Helmholtz Center CISPA are providing advice. The core task of this new app is explained as follows:
The core task of the Corona app is to inform citizens who have had contact with someone infected with Corona about this contact as quickly as possible. This enables the affected people to be isolated promptly and chains of infection are broken.
Although part of the functionality is already known, the federal government explains it again. The publication states:
To do this, the Corona app will use Bluetooth Low Energy to measure the distance between people and enable mobile devices to remember contacts that have met the criteria specified by the RKI (proximity and time). They exchange temporary encrypted identities with each other. If users of the Corona app test positive for the corona virus, they can have the app inform their contacts on a voluntary basis. In the event of an infection, the encrypted IDs of the infected person are made available to all mobile phones of the app users. They can then check whether they have been in contact with the transmitted IDs. If there is a match, the user is warned about the critical contact.
Provision of a research server planned in the second step
It should be noted that the infected person is not informed about which contact persons are being notified – at the same time, the identity of the infected person is also protected. Thus, anonymity is maintained on both sides. Technical measures are also intended to prevent misuse of the app. The press release also states that a research server is planned after the app's release. Volunteer users can donate data here, which will be pseudonymized and used for quality assurance analysis. The German government has also answered five of the most important questions on the topic under the motto "How the Corona App Could Help." The document was made available yesterday and can be downloaded at http://www.coronavirus.org/ here can be accessed. (Photo by k0l0b0k / Bigstockphoto)
