Unfortunately, people here are misunderstanding this story.<p>This is not about the official contact-tracing app by the government (the CWA), which by its very nature is decentralised and <i>doesn't</i> allow for that.<p>This is about the Luca app, a privately developed contact tracing app that is used <i>by some German states</i> and that uses centralised tracking.<p>This app has absolutely been the focus of criticism inside of Germany, notably including most security experts and the CCC (Germany's largest hackers' association). These criticisms are <i>not</i> dismissed as conspiracy theories by anyone. As a result, some states are also considering pulling out of the deals with Luca.<p>What is happening here is a discussion about privacy vs. surveillance which is very much in the open, and has very little to do with the official Coronavirus policy of the federal government.
This is the exact thing that people worry about with these kinds of technologies. We are always assured that our data is safe. Then when people forget about it, forces muscle their way into your data.<p>I guess this is the promise of web3, but it looks like we’re technologically a ways out from that, if ever.
Here in Québec we have the most restrictive measures in Canada and probably the Americas. All private assemblies banned, vaccine passport for restaurants and other public spaces (soon to be extended to big surface stores such as Walmart and Costco), booster shots now required for the vaccine passport and finally curfew.<p>And now I just received a recruitment pamphlet from the government for a "citizen digital identity" which will be used on smart phones.<p>Am I the only one seeing a pattern here?
> German police used a tracing app to scout crime witnesses. Some fear that’s fuel for covid conspiracists.<p>How is it that something happens, actually really happens, and it's still dismissed as fuel for conspiracists?
> “We must not allow faith in digital apps, which are an important tool in the fight against covid-19, to disappear,” Konstantin von Notz, a lawmaker for the German Greens, told the Handelsblatt newspaper.<p>Too late!
Four Main Roles of Government:<p>1. Keep a rule of law<p>2. Maintain a stable & competitive economy<p>3. Turn taxes into public services (defense, roads, etc)<p>4. Lie