After growing criticism from IT circles: State data protection officials are scrutinizing the Luca app

The data protection officer in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania wants to take a closer look at the Luca contact tracing app in the Corona pandemic. A spokeswoman said on Thursday that the authority has had tentative documents from the state government since this week, but was unable to comment yet. Thus, the reason for the scrutiny is the authority’s press inquiries regarding the growing criticism from IT circles for the application of Luca.

According to the German news agency, the authority does not yet see a reason to warn Luka. However, the spokeswoman said important questions about liability and protection of technical data remain open. Data protection officials in Berlin are responsible for this because the company behind Luca is based there.

Luca comes highly recommended in the MV, but it’s not a commitment

According to the spokeswoman, privacy advocates stress that no one should be excluded from public life who does not want to use the app. There must be a non-discriminatory alternative. However, more privacy-friendly alternatives, such as the Corona Warning app, which will soon be equipped with similar functions to Luca, may run into difficulty.

Because in the Corona State Decree in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Luca was identified as the central solution for contact tracing. This does not imply a duty, but the government wants everyone to use Lucca as much as possible. Ultimately, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Infrastructure said merchants will have to meet documentation requirements; The government “urgently” recommends the use of Lucca due to its association with health authorities.

Just this week, a vulnerability was found in the Luca Contact Tracker master keys. The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) demanded an “immediate halt” of Luca after the security gap became known. The vulnerability attests to a “fundamental lack of understanding of basic principles of IT security,” as CCC spokesperson Linus Newman criticized. Due to a “continuous series of security problems”, tax money should no longer be spent on it and use of the app should be stopped. (With materials of dpa) /

(FDS)