As the EU's economy reels from virus lockdowns, Brussels unveiled a
proposed roadmap Wednesday to ease restrictions on life and businesses,
relying in large part on smartphone tracking apps.
That technology aims to spot localized COVID-19 outbreaks in
real-time. Already many individual European governments are on the verge
of rolling out their own tracking apps.
But the European Commission is concerned those go-it-alone
initiatives will provide incompatible data sets, useless for compiling a
whole picture across the single market where people and goods are meant
to move freely.
It is also worried these apps could fall foul of strong EU data
privacy rules and Europeans' deep-seated wariness of technological
prying.
"The aim is to get the single market back on track so that it can
work properly," Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told a videolink
news conference as she unveiled the 16-page roadmap to phasing out
lockdowns that have brought life to a standstill in many countries.
The document puts data collection and contact tracing at the top of
its recommended measures, above expanding testing, reinforcing
healthcare systems and providing more protective gear.
But it said the use of any apps should be "voluntary" and comply with personal data protection rules.
"Tracing close proximity between mobile devices should be allowed
only on an anonymous and aggregated basis, without any tracking of
citizens, and names of possibly infected persons should not be disclosed
to other users," it said.
An EU official giving more details to journalists later called such
apps "very useful to prevent localized flare-ups" of the virus.
But, he warned, "they will only work if citizens have full trust in those apps -- this is very important to stress"
Note EU-Digest: It is a good idea - and
don't worry about your privacy on the internet, that has already been
gone several year ago re: GPS, Bank Cards, Credit Cards, Phone cards
etc., which carry just about all your private information.
Read more at: EU looks to apps as way of easing virus lockdown | News , World | THE DAILY STAR
