IT Blog

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has chosen a home-grown technology for smartphone-based tracing of coronavirus infections, putting it at odds with Apple which has refused on privacy grounds to support the necessary short-range communication on iPhones.

The government has told lawmakers it has chosen a design developed for the Robert Koch Institute – the agency leading Germany’s coronavirus health response – that would hold personal data on a central server.

Countries around the world are rushing to launch digital contact tracing apps to identify who an infected person has had contact with as part of efforts to slow the spread of the pandemic.

In Europe, governments want to use Bluetooth ‘handshakes’ between devices as a way to measure the risk of infection, but approaches differ as to whether such contacts…