How useful are foreign corona warning apps

October 21, 2021

FOREIGN CORONA WARN APPS

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How useful are foreign corona warning apps?

Corona warning apps send notifications to users when a person suffering from Covid-19 has stayed in their vicinity. In this way, chains of infection are to be uncovered and broken. If you want to use the application abroad, you face some problems.

NO NETWORKING OF THE WARN APPS YET

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If you want to use the warning app in your holiday destination, you should get information from the responsible authorities.

The federal government's new corona warning app has already been downloaded by around 15 million people. However, it only works in Germany. Should vacationers download a foreign warning app before going abroad? Official Corona warning apps are available in Denmark, France and Austria, among others. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to exchange the data between the various warning apps, explains IT specialist Patrick Bellmer from the Heise Online specialist portal to the dpa. Technically, this is quite feasible, but the apps have not yet integrated this function.

NOT ALL WARNING APPS ARE AVAILABLE FOR GERMANS

If you are planning a longer stay in a neighboring country and would like to use the warning app there, you can obtain information from the responsible authorities. Information and links to the official app can usually be found on the website of the respective health ministry. The prerequisite for use is that the holiday country has made its corona warning app available in the German App Store or Google Play Store, says Bellmer. For example, German users would not have access to the French app stores. Conversely, the German warning app is only available in certain countries.

TWO FUNCTIONS

The Corona warning apps are based on two different modes of operation, the central and the decentralized system. The decentralized approach is used in the German and Danish warning apps: data is exchanged via a central server, explains IT specialist Bellmer, but the data is decrypted on the user's smartphone.

The problem for vacationers is that two warning apps with decentralized functionality cannot run in parallel on one smartphone. The interface, the so-called Google-Apple protocol, between the technology of the smartphone and the app permanently sends a Bluetooth signal - and that does not work for two applications at the same time. In countries with a centrally controlled Corona warning app, however, this problem does not exist because the program does not run via the Google-Apple protocol.

TIPS FOR GERMAN HOLIDAYS

What does this mean for German vacationers? If you are planning a stay of several weeks in Denmark, for example, you can download the Danish Corona Warning app for the duration of the trip. The German Corona app is then deactivated during use, so that no information is received from Germany. If you deactivate the Danish warning app after returning, you will no longer be informed about possible risk contacts in Denmark. In view of the incubation period of around two weeks, this approach makes little sense. A possible solution to the dilemma could be the use of a second cell phone. It would also be conceivable that the partners split up on vacation, so that one uses the German Corona warning app on the smartphone, the other the foreign program.

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