BRUSSELS (Reuters) – 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.
“Strong privacy safeguards are a pre-requisite for the uptake of these apps, and therefore their usefulness,” European digital chief Thierry Breton said in a statement.
The Commission said the mobile apps should be approved by public health authorities, installed voluntarily and deleted once they are not needed.
The apps should be based on anonymised data and work with other apps in other EU countries.
“Location data is not necessary nor recommended for the purpose of contact tracing…
Source Reuters Tech News
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