European Union looks to apps as way of easing virus lockdown

Illustration of contact tracing apps on a smartphone in Arlington, Virginia, recently. — AFP

BRUSSELS: As the EU's economy reels from virus lockdowns, Brussels unveiled a proposed roadmap on April 15 to ease restrictions on life and businesses, relying in large part on smartphone tracking apps.

That technology aims to spot localised Covid-19 outbreaks in real-time. Already many individual European governments are on the verge of rolling out their own tracking apps.