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Unfortunately, people here are misunderstanding this story. This is not about the official contact-tracing app by the government (the CWA), which by its very n

Unfortunately, people here are misunderstanding this story. This is not about the official contact-tracing app by the government (the CWA), which by its very nature is decentralised and doesn't allow for that. This is about the Luca app, a privately developed contact tracing app that is used by some German states and that uses centralised tracking. This app has absolutely been the focus of criticism inside of Germany, notably including most security experts and the CCC (Germany's largest hackers' association). These criticisms are not dismissed as conspiracy theories by anyone. As a result, some states are also considering pulling out of the deals with Luca. What is happening here is a discussion about privacy vs. surveillance which is very much in the open, and has very little to do with the official Coronavirus policy of the federal government.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
That's definitely valuable context, but it kinda seems like it just shifts the criticism to German state governments. Why are they using this centralized app with privacy issues if there was a perfectly good decentralized one they could have used?
- Tainnor 5y ago
  Yes it does, and the German state governments have made very questionable decisions here. I'm arguing against the misguided notion that this is being dismissed as conspiracy theory, which it absolutely is not. Luca has been controversial since the beginning. The reason why a centralised solution was chosen is quite simple to see, though: In the centralised system, the health agency knows who to contact when they might have been infected and could in theory force these people to do a test or into quarantine (in practice, they usually don't have enough personnel to do so, though...). With the decentralised system, every person can get a notification when they could have been exposed. Whether or not they act upon that notification is up to them. In the end, I don't think the privacy nightmare is worth it (especially given that health departments are understaffed), but I can see how other actors could come to a different conclusion without it having to be a conscious decision to collect a ton of data for other purposes.
- eqvinox 5y ago
  They basically fell for an opportunist gold digger with a PR department. The driving factor has literally been a rapper, this dude: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudo (… I wish I was joking. I'm not.) [ed.] just to be clear: that absolutely does not excuse the states' decisions. While it might be understandable that someone can drive social and media discourse with some luck and prior experience, it's the states' job to do their due diligence and not base their decisions on empty PR.
- throw827474737 5y ago
  The state one was a little late with features (as always, nevertheless, now has all we need) and a famous pop star lobbied around like crazy in talkshows and on politicians (he is financially invested in that stupid luca app). How it goes as usually. Just wanted to also leave this here: https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2021/luca-app-ccc-fordert-bundesnotbremse https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2021/luca-app-ccc-fordert-bund... "The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) demands an immediate end to states' alimentation of Smudo's million-dollar tax grab "Luca app." and also as always, predicted the illegal data grab, but noone ever listens..
- hidudeurcool 5y ago
rgrieselhuber 5y ago
Yup it’s not really government surveillance if they outsource it to a private company.
- syshum 5y ago
  umm it still is government surveillance
  - rgrieselhuber 5y ago
    Yes

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

That's definitely valuable context, but it kinda seems like it just shifts the criticism to German state governments. Why are they using this centralized app with privacy issues if there was a perfectly good decentralized one they could have used?

Tainnor 5y ago
Yes it does, and the German state governments have made very questionable decisions here. I'm arguing against the misguided notion that this is being dismissed as conspiracy theory, which it absolutely is not. Luca has been controversial since the beginning. The reason why a centralised solution was chosen is quite simple to see, though: In the centralised system, the health agency knows who to contact when they might have been infected and could in theory force these people to do a test or into quarantine (in practice, they usually don't have enough personnel to do so, though...). With the decentralised system, every person can get a notification when they could have been exposed. Whether or not they act upon that notification is up to them. In the end, I don't think the privacy nightmare is worth it (especially given that health departments are understaffed), but I can see how other actors could come to a different conclusion without it having to be a conscious decision to collect a ton of data for other purposes.
eqvinox 5y ago
They basically fell for an opportunist gold digger with a PR department. The driving factor has literally been a rapper, this dude: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudo (… I wish I was joking. I'm not.) [ed.] just to be clear: that absolutely does not excuse the states' decisions. While it might be understandable that someone can drive social and media discourse with some luck and prior experience, it's the states' job to do their due diligence and not base their decisions on empty PR.
throw827474737 5y ago
The state one was a little late with features (as always, nevertheless, now has all we need) and a famous pop star lobbied around like crazy in talkshows and on politicians (he is financially invested in that stupid luca app). How it goes as usually. Just wanted to also leave this here: https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2021/luca-app-ccc-fordert-bundesnotbremse https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2021/luca-app-ccc-fordert-bund... "The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) demands an immediate end to states' alimentation of Smudo's million-dollar tax grab "Luca app." and also as always, predicted the illegal data grab, but noone ever listens..
hidudeurcool 5y ago

rgrieselhuber 5y ago

Yup it’s not really government surveillance if they outsource it to a private company.

syshum 5y ago
umm it still is government surveillance
- rgrieselhuber 5y ago
  Yes