Saturday, January 08, 2022
Incident in Mainz
Police illegally used data from the Luca app
After leaving a restaurant in Mainz, a man falls badly. A few days later he succumbs to his injuries. When looking for witnesses, the police use data from the Luca app. The query is illegal.
According to a media report, the police in Mainz accessed data from the Luca app during an investigation into a fall resulting in death without any legal basis. The SWR reports this based on its own research. According to this, visitors to a restaurant in Mainz were identified through the data query in order to be able to question them as possible witnesses.
The background: A visitor to the restaurant apparently fell on November 28 after leaving the restaurant. He died a few days later from his serious injuries. An employee of the restaurant confirmed to the SWR that detectives had actively asked for data from the Luca app after the incident. After the data was released by the Mainz health department, the employee complied with the request.
The Luca app is used in many pubs and restaurants to track corona contacts. According to the Infection Protection Act, it is not permitted for criminal prosecution for reasons of data protection law. At the request of the SWR, the Mainz public prosecutor confirmed the data query using the Luca app. A total of 21 possible witnesses were found and contacted. This step had been coordinated with the police, said the authority.
However, the implementation was carried out due to an incorrect assessment of the Infection Protection Act. The data protection officer of the authority has already been informed and the state data protection officer of Rhineland-Palatinate has also been informed.
“The Mainz public prosecutor’s office expresses its regret towards those affected by inadmissible access to the data and asks them to excuse this access,” the SWR quoted from a letter from the public prosecutor’s office. The authority now wants to clarify whether data from the Luca app was used in further investigative proceedings. So far, no other case is known, it is said.