From mid-October, data exchange within the European Union is to start on a cross-border basis. This was announced today.
Eleven European countries will be involved in the exchange of data in the coming weeks.
Italy, Ireland and Germany will be the first ones to start
Initially, Germany, Italy and Ireland plan to start exchanging data on October 17, 2020. The other eight member states will then follow suit in the following weeks.
Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland and France are currently left out. However, the French app is probably not even compatible with that of the EU.
Data synchronization service
The service for data reconciliation was developed by SAP and Deutsche Telekom in the last few weeks. The code for the data synchronization service is open source like the app and can be viewed on Github.
An update of the app is required for the synchronization among countries.
The synchronization of the data cannot be done just like that. A separate agreement is required for this.
Developer circles announced that there are three different modes for the up- and download of the keys. All keys can be downloaded by affected persons. The user can decide for himself whether he releases his key for all countries of the European Union or only for certain countries.
A special mode has been set up for travelers. Here non-travellers should only be able to download the domestic keys and those of travellers. In turn, a traveler can also download all keys.
Thus, it is up to each country to decide which mode it wants to use nationally.
In Germany, only the Europe mode is to be provided for the time being at the beginning of the data exchange. Here, individual EU countries cannot be selected individually.
Test already running
The first tests with data from six countries have been running since last week. The missing eight countries will be added at the end of October. These include: Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Spain.
The Corona app will then also be launched in Cyprus, Lithuania and Belgium in the near future.
France Problems during replacement
France remains a problem. It is still unclear how and whether data exchange can take place at all. The EU Commission and the French authorities are already working on the issue.
The problem stems from the fact that France does not use the Bluetooth interface provided by Google and Apple, but a central system for the allocation and evaluation of keys.
User quota
EU-wide, the user rate of the Corana app is about 10 percent. In Germany, the rate is significantly higher at just over 20 percent.
According to the EU Commission, any contact notification via the app is welcome and can save lives.
