The cabinet expects to be able to decide in four weeks whether and how an app can be used that can trace people who may have come into contact with a corona patient. Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Health) announced this in the letter from Tuesday to Wednesday in a letter to the House of Representatives.
Minister De Jonge decided not to order the deployment of one of the seven apps that were presented during an ‘appathon’ last weekend.
In the end, it turned out that none of the proposed apps are ready to use. Among other things, the usefulness of a tracking app has not been proven and there were still too many questions in the area of privacy and security.
The minister does write that he is ‘happy’ that the ‘appathon’ has led to a broad social debate. “I do not think lightly about the introduction of digital support for source and contact tracing. I will not make concessions to the preconditions. The possible introduction of apps will have to be accompanied by scientific research.”
New team for corona app
The Letter to Parliament states that a new team is being set up to work on a new solution. “My commitment is to quickly have a team with the right builders and also with experts in areas such as information security, privacy, fundamental rights, national security and inclusion.”
De Jonge announced on April 7 that the government is thinking of using an app that can be used to find out which people an infected person has been around. The app should support the research that the GGD normally already carries out.
GGD: ‘No reason’ to use the app now
According to the GGD umbrella organization, there is “no reason” to use an app at the moment. The ‘intelligent lockdown’ measures announced on March 12 were extended Tuesday to at least May 20. As long as this phase continues, the use of an app according to the GGD is of little use.
If the measures are relaxed at a later time, an app according to the GGD may help to map the contacts of infected persons.
Later, an app may even partially take over this work. In that case, the human work at the GGD will continue to focus on vulnerable target groups, such as the elderly, and people without an app.
At the request of De Jonge, the GGD is setting up a special task force to investigate the influence of the app on the behavior of citizens.
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