The German Corona warning app has now been downloaded more than 21 million times from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. Around 16 million iPhone or Android smartphone owners are actively using them. However, in the opinion of both the federal government and the health authorities, the app has not yet fully achieved what was promised of it.
Roadmap with extensions has been created
One of the biggest problems appears to be the unwillingness of users to share an infection with other users via the app. Only 60 percent of the users of the Corona warning app who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 reported the infection, reported Business Insider (BI). According to the news portal, the federal government has therefore had a still secret roadmap drawn up, which contains future extensions to the app. According to BI, the project plans developed by Deutsche Telekom and SAP are available to BI and include numerous improvements that are to be implemented by March of next year.
The first expansion will come at the end of November
An update is said to be released as early as the end of November, adding a reminder function to the Corona warning app. After a positive test result, this should prompt the user several times to submit the result. The anonymity will be preserved as before. In addition, the developers are increasing the frequency of the data synchronization: So far, the so-called risk determination has only been carried out every 24 hours, in the future it will be done several times a day.
Big update planned for the end of February 2021
A major update with a number of extensions is planned for February next year. The version of the Corona warning app that will then appear is intended to provide users with more information about possible contacts with infected people. If a high risk of infection has been identified, the application will in future also display the time of a possible infection. This should enable those affected to inform possible contact persons and to pass this data on to the health authorities. In addition, the developers are planning to add a contact diary to the app, which can be kept by the user and thus facilitate the tracking of chains of infection.
Check in with the Corona warning app in the restaurant?
In addition, the Corona-Warn-App allegedly eliminates the need to provide contact details in restaurants or at events in just a few months. According to Business Insider, users could check into a restaurant using a QR code, for example, and this information would then be stored in the Corona warning app. It is doubtful, however, that such a function can be reconciled with the license conditions for COVID-19 exposure notifications. As is well known, Apple and Google expressly and without exception prohibit the collection of location data by applications which, like the German Corona warning app, use the framework developed by both companies.