In Mainz, the police illegally access data in the Luca app after a death. The company condemns the investigators’ actions.
Mainz / Kassel – The Mainz police unlawfully accessed data from users of the Luca app * during an investigation into a death. This is reported by the German Press Agency (dpa). There was no sufficient legal basis for this, said the Mainz public prosecutor’s office on Friday evening (January 7th, 2022).
According to this, visitors to a restaurant in downtown Mainz were identified with the help of the Luca data and asked about an incident. On November 29, 2021, a visitor apparently fell so badly after leaving the restaurant that he succumbed to his injuries a few days later. Thereupon 21 potential witnesses were contacted by telephone. The prosecutor apologized to those affected. The Südwestrundfunk (SWR) previously reported on the case.
Mainz: The company behind the Luca app condemns the police’s actions
The Luca app helps restaurant owners and event organizers, among other things, to do the legally required recording of guests due to the corona pandemic * without wasting paper. Covid-19 vaccination certificates can also be stored in the Luca app *. However, the collected data may not be used in law enforcement.
Culture4Life GmbH, to which Luca belongs, criticized the incident in Mainz: “We condemn this misuse of the data collected by the Luca app for infection protection.” it further. The company would always reply “that we cannot deliver any data because we have no technical access to it due to the encryption concept.”
Abuse of the Luca app: Did the Mainz police force the health department to cooperate?
The data could only be made available if the respective health department and the respective company gave their consent in the event of a corona infection and used their individual keys in order to decrypt the data, explained the Berlin-based company. In Mainz, the responsible health department probably cooperated under pressure or at the request of the police and simulated a case of infection in order to get the approval of the catering trade.
The public prosecutor said: “It will ensure that the relevant data is no longer used.” No other cases are known in which the contact details of the Luca app were used. However, a corresponding test had been initiated. In addition, the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information for Rhineland-Palatinate should be informed. (Nail Akkoyun) * hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
