German police used a contact tracing app to track down witnesses in a local crime case. The scandal has data protection advocates up in arms, with politicians warning that abuse of the app could undermine public trust.
Summary
- Authorities in Germany faced increasing criticism on Tuesday over their misuse of a COVID contact tracing app to investigate a case.
- While trying to track down witnesses, police and prosecutors managed to successfully petition local health authorities to release data from the Luca app, which logs how long people stayed at an establishment.
- Watch video 03:36 Germany: Luca app makes contact tracing easierReports on the case, which emerged last week, sparked widespread outrage.
- The Luca app works by logging the amount of time that patrons spent at a restaurant, bar or cultural event.
- “We condemn the abuse of Luca data collected to protect against infections,” the company said in a statement.