The Luca app is on the brink of extinction in several federal states. The benefit in the fight against Corona is small. In addition, there is still criticism of data protection.
Berlin – When it was introduced, it was seen as a hope in the fight against the corona pandemic in Germany: the Luca app. In the meantime, however, the smartphone program for contact tracing of infected people is having a difficult time. In the first federal states, the app is now even on the brink of extinction.
After Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen also made the final decision to let the contract with the Luca operator Culture4Life expire. “The use of the Luca app did not show any great added value in contact tracing last year,” said Claudia Bernhard (left), Senator for Health in Bremen, on Friday (January 14, 2022). “In Bremen, only a few inquiries were made by the health department, and the system has therefore not proven itself for us.”
Corona: The Luca app is of little use in the pandemic
The Ministry of Health in Brandenburg also recommends not extending the contract. When asked by the dpa news agency, Health Minister Ursula Nonnemacher (Greens) said that, according to a survey, only one of the 18 health authorities regularly uses the app to trace corona infection chains. The fact that authorities hardly use the app can also be heard from numerous other countries – they had previously spent a total of around 20 million euros on its use. In Hesse, a Luca exit is also being considered.
In addition to the little benefit in the Corona crisis, there is also the controversy about data protection problems. As early as spring 2021, the Chaos Computer Club called for the tax funds for the Luca app to be abolished. The hacker association spoke of a “never-ending series of security problems” that had been found.
An incident in Mainz recently caused outrage. In the Rhineland-Palatinate state capital, the police, together with the health department, used data from the Luca app to search for witnesses to a fatal fall in a restaurant. Experts and individual politicians then called for the app to be uninstalled and instead to be used with the Corona warning app, which offers comparable functions.
Corona: Smudo defends itself against criticism of the Luca app
Rapper and investor Smudo – the advertising character of the Luca app – defended the program after the deletion calls. “I think it’s irresponsible that a call from one or two politicians I’ve never met before could result in people deleting the Luca app in the middle of the pandemic situation,” the musician told the Bild newspaper on Tuesday (January 11, 2022 ).
Later he spoke again in detail to the editorial network Germany. “The case from Mainz was due to misconduct on the part of the authorities, but not a fault in the Luca app. And there have been cases like this before. For example, the police officers simply walked into bars and took the contact tracing slips with them,” Smudo told RND on Sunday (January 16, 2022). In addition, one does not have to decide whether to use the Luca or the Corona warning app. “I don’t think the two apps are mutually exclusive. They complement each other,” says the rapper.
Corona app Luca: Experts continue to see data protection problems
Smudo considers the debate about data protection problems to be exaggerated: “Since the introduction of the Luca app, there have been two problems that data protection experts have pointed out to us and which we have rectified immediately. Otherwise there were no data protection problems with the Luca app. There’s this narrative that the app has endless privacy issues – it’s just not true.”
However, experts hardly see any improvements in the handling of data. “Luca has hardly improved in terms of technical quality after the first major security gap, Luca-Track,” said IT expert Bianca Kastl to RND. Furthermore, masses of data would be collected and the architecture of the app would also be problematic. (tvd/dpa)
Rubric picture: © Marijan Murat / dpa
