Contact tracing in Europe: all apps

Perhaps due to the fact that it was first hit by the health crisis already in February, Italy is among the first countries in the world to have an operational contact tracing application on the whole national territory. Immuni is the first in Europe based on the Google-Apple platform and available (from today) for the entire population. We see in this article how the other states of the old continent have moved.

Not only Immune: contact tracing apps in Europe What immediately catches the eye by taking a look at the list shown below is that a shared approach has not been adopted. This inevitably results in a lack of interoperability. A potential limit if you consider the very purpose of the initiative, especially in view of a massive recovery of cross-border movements during the summer season following the relaxation of restrictive measures. So let's see what apps are in the pipeline or launched by individual countries.

Austria : already operational Stopp Crown, developed by the Österreichisches Rotes Kreuz (Austrian Red Cross); Belgium : the country has not developed or launched any app, but is available in the system SAVITAS (Scoped Anonymous Viral Infection Tracing At Scale), developed by the startup local Esoptra; Bulgaria : VirusSafe, which was launched at the beginning of April, offers the opportunity to share geographic location on a voluntary basis; Cyprus : COVTRACER, developed by a research centre of the government and launched at the beginning of may; Croatia : at the moment the country has not yet published your application to the contact tracing; Denmark : no app when launched, but development is confirmed; Estonia : still no app available, but in the implementation phase; Finland : the application Ketju, developed by the software house 2M-EN, is being tested in the nordic country; France : StopCOVID is the solution of the alps, based on a centralized approach to manage data; Germany : the German government has chosen the Crown-Warn-App , made with the technology made available by Google and Apple; Greece : it has not been launched in any app, but the service DOCANDU Covid Checker is active to provide information and support to those who manifested symptoms related to those of the disease; the republic of Ireland : built by Nearform, on commission by the Health Service Executive, is based on the platform of Google and Apple, it currently is in the phase of development; Iceland : the official application of the country is in a test phase from mid-may; Italy : Immune , based on the platform made available by a partnership between Google and Apple; Latvia : Apturi Covid adopts a decentralised approach, aiming at interoperability with other applications active in the old continent; Liechtenstein : there is no information on a dedicated app, but since April it has been experimented with the use of a kind of electronic bracelet to be worn voluntarily; Lithuania : the app Stop Covid has been put in standby at the end of may for issues related to operation not in accordance with the GDPR; Luxembourg : the most recent news about it date back to the beginning of may, when the grand Duchy has decided for a decentralized approach to the management of the data; Malta : the country has not introduced any application to the contact tracing and do not there are updates on a development in progress; Norway : Smittestopp was launched in mid-April with a notification system via SMS; the Netherlands : the government has expressed favourably vis-à-vis the decentralized approach proposed by Google and Apple, but is still facing the debate about the need to launch an app dedicated to; Poland : in this case, the two launched applications, Kwarantanna Domowa and ProteGO Safe Safe, the first is obligatory, with facial recognition and geolocation to ensure that the affected persons remain in isolation, the second to install on a voluntary basis; Portugal : after initially asserted that they do not need an application for contact tracing, the country has chosen to start the development, based on Google's android platform and Apple; Czech Republic : eRouška, launched in mid-April, requires registration through phone number; United Kingdom : NHS Covid-19 App adopts a centralized approach to manage the information (but the government could go back on his steps), the test phase was started at the beginning of may; Romania : the app CovTrack developed pro bono by the local company RISE is based on another software (AGORA) which is already used for the management of crowds at events and festivals, Slovakia the software is in development phase with the process is maintained by Sygic, team already the author of the applications Covid19 ZostanZdravy and-Quarantine-employed by the local authority, with similar purposes; Slovenia : no app developed, but the government is considering the possibility of using the Italian Immune; Spain : the application OpenCoronavirus developed by a group of volunteers is building on a decentralized approach to information management; Sweden : at the end of April, the Lund University has launched COVID Symptom Study on Android and iOS to keep under control the spread of the disease, but at the moment we have no news of applications for the contact tracing authorized official from the Public Health Agency; Hungary : launched in mid-may, VírusRadar lever on the Bluetooth module of the smartphone and requires to send an SMS for activation. Expanding the geographical scope to the global level, another short list, useful for understanding as between one area and the other changes the management of the information and accordingly there are different implications in terms of privacy , a theme that is greatly debated even within our borders.

Australia : COVIDSafe is based on the protocol BlueTrace Singapore; Bahrain : the app be aware Bahrain employs a mechanism that detects the proximity between users and geo-location to enforce the obligation to respect the quarantine in the event of a positive diagnosis; China : the software Close Contact Detector is available in the asian country since February, when the spread of the disease has begun to affect the whole territory; Japan : the debut of the application in japan to the contact tracing is expected in days; Singapore : the territory has launched TraceTogether and proposed the use of a wearable device for contact tracing; USE : for each state the task of managing the matter in an autonomous way, with some areas that have immediately launched the first applications, while others are still in a strong delay with the implementation of the technology, leading to a situation which is extremely fragmented. The list in this article is up to date to June 15, 2020 on the basis of the information found in the Network or already reported in the articles published in the past on these pages.