Miriam Meckel on the Corona App, Tracing Technologies, and Data Protection
“Unfortunately, politics is rather clumsy. It fails to do what many companies, from startups to large corporations, repeatedly help to change with the pulse of time to offer the best solutions. Pivoting is what they call it in Silicon Valley: swiveling when conditions make it necessary. The use of the Corona Tracing App would have been necessary. Developed in the first phase of the pandemic, the app emerged from a situation of uncertainty. Lobby groups were quickly on hand to polemicize against the use of tracing technology. Only decentralized data storage of the app was allowed, so the demand, otherwise the end of privacy would be threatened. In the middle of the second Corona wave we know: The summer months could and should have been used to evaluate the experiences of the first pandemic phase and to fundamentally improve the app. Because this second wave came with force. Again, social life is restricted, the economy suffers. Could the app have helped here? It would have needed a pivot in terms of privacy.”
– Miriam Meckel, founder and CEO of ada Learning GmbH, in “Schizophrenic Data Protection” (Not even a quarter of the population uses the Corona Warning App. False skepticism costs many people their health and society a lot of money), guest commentary in Handelsblatt, November 23, 2020, No. 227