The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has just presented the new data donation corona app at a press conference on television. The app is now available for people with iOS and Android devices. The app is intended to help the RKI to gain more information about the effectiveness of measures to combat the corona virus. According to the app, the main areas of infection in Germany are to be identified so that infection with SARS-CoV-2 can be rapidly contained. Every German citizen who has a fitness bracelet or a Smartwatch can help. The „Corona Data Donation“ app, therefore, retrieves vital data such as resting pulse, sleep and activity patterns and the body temperature of the person recording the data, if recorded. In the event of respiratory diseases, such as a corona virus infection, these vital data change, so that the recording can reveal typical symptoms of a COVID-19 infection. The data is transmitted pseudonymised, i.e. without knowing the name and address of the user of the app. During initialisation, only the postcode is transmitted without location and location data; in addition, the above-mentioned vital data regarding the age, weight, gender and height of the user is transmitted. As the President of the RKI, Professor Lothar H. Wieler, expressly emphasized, the use of the data donation app is not about tracking the contact persons of each individual. The information provided by the institute is then merely subjected to scientific processing and then flows into a map on which the spread of the virus of potentially infected persons can be identified and conclusions are drawn. Important here is the occurrence of infection, the spread of COVID-19 and the success of the measures taken so far in order to learn more about the nature of the virus and its spread. This is why it is so important that many people participate in the RKI’s activities.
