Covid-19: Privacy-mad Germany turns to app to track virus spread

A woman wears a face mask as she checks her phone in Berlin's Kreuzberg district amidst the new coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. A proposed smartphone app will track and record people’s interactions via Bluetooth for two weeks, without using geolocation tracking and with a promise that data will be securely protected. — AFP

BERLIN: Personal data protection is a thorny subject in privacy-loving Germany, but the country is nevertheless considering using a smartphone app to help manage the spread of the new coronavirus.

Even Chancellor Angela Merkel — who often refers to her youth in surveillance-ridden communist East Germany — said on April 1 that if it turns out to be a helpful way of tracking the spread of the virus "I would... of course be willing to use it for myself".