Users should voluntarily share data
No time right now?
Version 1.13 of the official Corona warning app is here. Its main innovation is the ability to request data that users would not normally transfer.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) asks for a data donation. So will the new function the updated Corona warning app officially designated. If you think of the RKI’s data donation app, which came on the market last spring, you are mistaken.
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Not to be confused with the data donation app
Because while the data donation app should forward data from activity trackers such as Fitbit or Garmin pseudonymized to the RKI in order to “better record and understand” the spread of the virus (RKI), the new function aims at the actual risk data. It would now be transmitted which risk the app has determined for the individual user.
There are only two states “red” for increased and “green” for low risk. The transmission allows the RKI a purely quantitative analysis: How many people were each exposed to which risk?
Also new is a link to a scientific survey by the RKI, which is displayed to people who receive a red warning and who were therefore exposed to an increased risk. The authority asks these people via a link to participate in a survey that wants to record how users behaved or want to behave before and after the warning was displayed.
Further data should provide regional insights
If you want, you can also send the RKI your state, district and age. This should be used to identify a possible connection between the risk status and the local incidence. The RKI could also see whether there are clusters in the risk assessment in a certain age group.
If you want, you can voluntarily provide the RKI with more data. (Screenshot: t3n / CWA project)
The transmission of the risk assessment as well as the passing on of the other data and participation in the RKI survey is voluntary. After the update, the app will display a pop-up window the first time it is started, in which the so-called data donation can be activated. The consent can be revoked at any time via the settings and can also be reassigned at any time.
The operators point out that all data is transferred pseudonymized so that no conclusions can be drawn about individual persons.
Contact diary gets more prominent placement
In addition, version 1.13 brings a little more comfort in handling the contact diary, which was introduced in version 1.10. The developers have now given it its own tab so that the diary can be easily accessed at any time.
The contact diary could soon be replaced by another app that can significantly simplify the logging of encounters. The Luca app co-developed by Fanta 4 is currently the favorite for this addition and is gaining more and more supporters in politics.
As always, the Corona warning app will be rolled out over a period of 48 hours and should be visible to users via the update overviews in Google’s Play and Apple’s app store.
