Corona App: RKI asks for data from fitness bracelets and Smartwatches
Digital technologies can play in the containment of infections with the new Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 an important role. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has now made an App that accesses the data from fitness bracelets and Smartwatches, in order to obtain further information about the spread of the Virus. The Corona data, the donation App is now available on all iOS and Android devices available.
The new App “Corona-data donation” can provide important supplementary information about where and how fast the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading in Germany, the notification of the RKI. The App works in combination with fitness wristbands and Smartwatches from various manufacturers and to be pseudonymous, so that no personal information, such as Name or address of the User are transmitted.
Vital data of Smartwatches or fitness bracelets
Many people in Germany to draw on a regular basis with Smartwatches or fitness bracelets your vital data, such as resting heart rate, sleep patterns, activity level, or body temperature. “In the case of acute respiratory disease, these vital signs will change, in most cases, significantly”, says the RKI. So the Corona could detect-data-donation-App on the basis of the data of the typical COVID-19-symptoms such as fever.
Which data is collected by the Corona data donation App?
- Zip code – Single specification of the Use, positioning or location data will not be queried.
- Body data – Gender, age, size, and weight specified in rough steps ( /- 5 kg and 5 cm).
- Vital data – Activity and sleep data, pulse rate, body temperature (if recorded)
Infection priorities better recognize
The App is not designed specifically for the tracking of contact persons, but rather to identify infection foci and to gain a more accurate picture of the effectiveness of measures to combat COVID-19, the communication by the RKI. All data will be processed according to the Institute, “scientific and will be placed in a card, on the basis of the regional distribution of potentially Infected is up to the level of the postcode visible. This map will be regularly updated and www.corona-datenspende.de released updated, reported to the RKI.
Conclusions about the effectiveness of measures
“If in a sufficiently large sample, the number of symptomatic patients can be detected, it could help us in the process early to draw conclusions on the infection happen to consider dissemination and also on the effectiveness of the existing measures”, says the RKI President Professor Lothar H. Wieler.
Digital applications is a useful tool
Such digital applications can complement the existing measures to curb COVID-19 is quite reasonable, and “we want many people to participate”; the RKI President more. The more people your data for an evaluation to provide, the more accurate the findings to the spread of the Coronavirus would. Developed the Corona-data-donation-App, together with the e-Health company, Thryve, and with the involvement of the Federal data protection officer, the notification to the RKI. (fp)