the owner of a smartphone by Apple or the Android operating system will get when you Update the System Software about the fact that Apple and Google want to make the function of official Corona-Warning Apps. This leads users to confusion, because the App is still.

STATEMENT : Google has been secretly expanding its Android Smartphones without the Update the interface for the planned Corona-Warning Apps, the governments, their citizens can spy on.

RATING : The allegations are false. The technical preparation of Android and iOS was not done "secretly", but was of two groups at the 10. April publicly announced. You can also spy on the App not the user. It is a comprehensive data protection concept was implemented, in which no spatial data or contact information is captured or transmitted. The programming of the App is transparent as "Open Source" and can be checked.

FACTS : To contain the chain of Infection is being worked on in many countries of Apps, the contacts of Smartphone users technically capture, for later contact, if one should have with the Coronavirus infected. In Germany will be discussed in February about the functions and the data protection concept. First Considerations to use for the determination of such encounters also spatial data via GPS or cellular, were quickly discarded again, because privacy advocates have expressed significant concerns.

Then, three concepts to choose from (PEP-PT, D3-PT and TCN), the keep track of in the core the same goal, namely, to use Bluetooth wireless to to determine in the case of a contact, the proximity and the duration of the meeting were. It's supposed to work: If two phones with the installed App come closer than about a metre and a half, they exchange anonymous numerical codes that expire every 15 or 20 minutes and by a short-time Code to be replaced.

Among academics, privacy activists, and IT entrepreneurs was a long time in a fight to the memory concept. PEPP-PT, preferred a centralised storage of anonymized contact information. D3-PT and TCN in favour of a decentralized concept in which the contact data on the smartphone will remain and only the anonymised list of the Infected to a Central Server lands. The conflict was decided by the Initiative from Apple and Google, which allow the use of their program interfaces (APIs) for a Corona-Warning-App only in the case of decentralized storage of the contact information.

in Particular, when the iPhone relies a Tracing App on these APIs to constantly Bluetooth to send signals and to receive when the App is running in the Background and not only on a unlocked iPhone in the foreground is running. Apple says due to privacy reasons, yet such an intense Bluetooth Funkerei. 21. In may, Apple released the operating system Update iOS 13.5, which is also a "COVID-19-contact Protocol" was introduced. The Protocol is initially turned off and can only be activated when an authorized application, such as the planned Corona-Warning-App of the Covenant will be installed on. Image: coronawarn.app / CHIP CHIP Corona

Google delivered the function on the same day for the Android Smartphones, however, not in the Form of a classic Android Updates, but an update to the "Google Play Services". With this approach, Google is not dependent on a cooperation of the Smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung or Lenovo, need months to make an Android Update available. In the case of older devices, the Hardware manufacturer to distribute the Software updates, it is often only in larger intervals, or not at all. The Google for the Covid-19-Update the selected procedures but also ensures that Android phones without "Google Play Services" such as the latest Huawei Smartphones or the fair phone 3 with the Android-variant "/e/OS" not be able to use the new APIs.

Like the iPhone can be activated, the "COVID-19-contact notifications" on Android only when a trusted App is installed and on the technology accesses. By the update of "Google Play Services" alone, no anonymous contact-IDs to be sent via Bluetooth, or receive.

The statement with the Update of iOS or the "Google Play Services" could have the government exactly where and with whom to meet, is in many respects wrong. Through the Updates without the need to install a suitable App, nothing happens initially. And even after the Installation of an authorized Corona-Warning-App that is used to exploit the new technical possibilities in iOS, or the "Google Play Services", this statement is not correct. It will be covered by the Corona-Warning-App no location information or transmit. The contact information is stored on any Server, could be achieved by the government in theory or in practice, but only on the Smartphones of the users. And transmitted over Bluetooth contact details are passed through a two-stage anonymization process, so that you can't close on the transferred short-term keys to the owner of the smartphone.

*The post "Corona-Warn-App: Spying on the System of German citizens?" published by chip.de. Contact with the executives here.