Austria launches new 'digital handshake' app

The Stopp Corona app helps users keep an anonymous digital diary of the people they've had contact with

In Austria, the Red Cross has launched a smartphone app called Stopp Corona, which helps users keep an anonymous digital diary of the people they have had contact with.

Gerry Foitik, from the Austrian Red Cross’s managing board, says the app aims to reduce the strain on the medical services. He says users perform a digital handshake.

“Whenever you have a close contact, you can record this manually and anonymously so if you get infected by the coronavirus, you can anonymously inform all your contacts from the last 48 hours, and they can self-isolate to disrupt the chain of infection.”

Austrian data protection activist Max Schrems says the app isn’t anonymous - as each person is given an ID number, but he says it doesn’t pose particular problems when it comes to the EU’s privacy laws.

“It's opt in. It's voluntary. People have to ask for consent.”

Mr Schrems also says the European data protection law, the GDPR, “foresees the tracking and the processing of data for international health incidents”.

“We have to see how we comply with the principles of the law to actually make sure that the invasion of privacy is limited to what's absolutely necessary