Wherever shops, restaurants or organizers are obliged to keep lists of visitors and participants , the corresponding functionality of the Corona Warning app can be used in Saxony from May 10, 2021. This makes Saxony a national pioneer. Anonymous check-ins for contact tracking are not permitted in any other federal state.
Obliged parties who do not use the Corona warning app or users who do not use the Corona warning app must – as before – be recorded or recorded with analog methods, i.e. the classic paperwork. Daniel Gerber, the network policy spokesman for the Green parliamentary group in the Saxon state parliament, sees his country as exemplary and recommends it to the other federal states to emulate.
Saxony is still standing alone with the step, but not without support. On April 29, 2021, the conference of the federal and state data protection authorities, the so-called data protection conference (DSK), issued a clear recommendation (PDF) for the use of the Corona warning app. The federal states should consider contact tracking via the Corona warning app “at least as a supplementary option for notifying potentially infected people and for cluster detection in their concepts for combating pandemics”. This applies “even if – unlike other apps – no personal data can be collected and later transmitted to a health department”, according to the DSK.
It is doubtful that a majority of the federal states will follow the path. After all, many of them have already acquired licenses for the controversial Luca app, which specializes in contact tracking. In addition, the perceived loss of control should not be particularly attractive compared to Luca.
Fake logins also with corona warning App possible
Of course, false warnings can be generated in both apps in this way, for example when supposed participants check into shops, restaurants or events where they actually do were not.
A specific problem with the Corona warning app is the fact that the warning function can only be triggered by the user in the context of contact tracking. If PCR positives do not trigger a warning via their app, no one will be warned. If it is triggered, however, it will be delivered faster than would be done via the detour via the health department.
The recipients of a warning can see in their contact diary which check-in was visited at the same time by a person who is now PCR-positive. With the Luca app, however, the health department is always on board and ultimately the master of every process step.
