In Norway the health authorities have announced a stop for the anti-covid-19 tracking app after the Norwegian Data Protection Authority has declared it is too invasive for privacy. Launched on the market during April, the “Smittestop” (so infection stop) has been created to capture people’s movements in order to help Authorities in tracking the Covid-19 diffusion and inform users if they came in contact with someone affected by this virus.

Last friday, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority issued an alert that banned the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) the personal data process of data collected with this app.

The Norwegian Data Protection Authority has affirmed that the Coronavirus diffusion in Norway was limited (600.000 users on 5.4 million of inhabitants), like is limited the app efficiency because of the low number of people that use it, making disproportionate the use compared to the next week one number of daily infection.

By NIPH arrived some declarations about disagreement with the assessments done by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, but the NIPH will delete all the app data by its operational suspension.

Stoltenberg affirms that this will weaken the Norwegian answer towards the coronavirus pandemic diffusion.
“The pandemic period is not finished”, he says.
The app was used by 600.000 out of 5.4 millions of inhabitants. Developed in Norway, this app uses centralized data storage, as required in France and in the United Kingdom. Norway suffered 242 coronavirus deaths last week and today it is still registering a few daily infections.

SOURCE: FEDERPRIVACY