corona
Police get Luca data: Now politicians are calling for the app to be deleted
Only the health department should know about a check-in with the Luca app.
© Rupert Oberhäuser // Picture Alliance
Just a few days ago, Luca app boss Patrick Hennig promised that starthat not a single contact in the system has fallen into the hands of unauthorized persons. Then the Mainz police gained access. As a consequence, even politicians are now calling for the software to be removed.
Just a few days ago, the Luca boss faced the never-ending criticism of his app and gave it star an interview. Probably the most important statement: The Luca app is safe, there has been no unauthorized access to the data to date. Only a few days later it was clear: at the time of the testimony, that was no longer true. That didn’t help the trust in the security of the Luca app. Now even politicians from the governing parties are publicly calling for the software to be deleted.
Alexander Salomon, parliamentary group member of the Greens in the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg makes the start. He described the app as “mouse dead” and explicitly encouraged it to disappear from smartphones via Twitter. He also asked Health Minister Karl Lauterbach that the federal and state governments should step up behind the Corona warning app. The consequence of the appeal would be that upcoming contract extensions with Luca could fail. Many federal states will have to decide on this in the coming months.
Salomon thus joins a growing number of critical voices. Media like the “NOZ” also publicly demand Put a stop to the financing of the privately run Luca app. Most recently, Luca had to take harsh criticism from the IT developer Bianca Kastl, who gave a damning verdict on the effectiveness of the app. Also the Federal Ministry of Health seems unsurewhat Luca is currently doing to combat the pandemic. The access of the authorities to the data of the app is thus further grist to the mill of the critics and a big problem for the operators of the app.
Mainz police looks at Luca app data
What happened? When investigating a death, the Mainz police unauthorized access to the data of a restaurant. The aim was to find possible witnesses among the guests at the location. However, the Infection Protection Act prohibits such misappropriation of data from contact tracking software. The responsible public prosecutor’s office confirmed the case and expressed regret. You have the text of the law “rated incorrectly“.
Luca published after the case became known a statement and strongly condemned the actions of the authorities. The police overturned the safety precautions by simulating an infection and were given unauthorized access to the check-in lists via the health department.
How Luca will maneuver out of the crisis of confidence after this data disaster remains to be seen. The operators of the Luca app, culture4life GmbH from Berlin, have been working with the Finsbury Glover Hering agency for weeks and are trying to save the damaged image, while public collections of previous missteps like Luca.fail or one Chaos Computer Club member Manuel Atug’s Twitter thread recorded impacts almost every day. The greatest strength of the app, that it has not yet given any data into the wrong hands, is definitely a thing of the past. Whether the developers or the system behind the Luca app were to blame for this probably plays a subordinate role in the eyes of the public.
Sources: Luca, Network policy