EU wants voluntary, privacy-based virus-tracking mobile apps

‘Contact tracing apps can be useful to limit the spread of the coronavirus. But their development and interoperability need to fully respect our values and privacy,’ Breton said in a statement. — Reuters

BRUSSELS: Mobile apps used by EU countries to help contain the spread of the coronavirus should comply with the bloc's privacy rules and seek people's consent to use personal data, but exclude location data, the European Commission said on Thursday.

The EU executive's recommendations are part of a unified European approach for using technology to combat Covid-19 and come after several EU countries rolled out a variety of apps, prompting criticism from data privacy activists.