The corona crisis, data protection and tracking apps in the EU

Abstract

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 put governments under pressure toswiftly introduce measures to protect citizens and react appropriately to theemerging threat. This paper focuses on geo-location tracking mobile phoneapplications developed in the Czech Republic and Austria to monitorpersonal movement of those positively tested for COVID-19 to prevent thefurther spread of the disease. The aim of the analysis is to answer thequestion of whether the appsʼ functionalities complied with the EU dataprotection standards and to what extent the citizensʼ right to control thecollection, evaluation and preservation of their personal data has beenviolated. Both countries belonged to the pioneers in COVID-19 apps. Whilethey differed in several areas such as the legal and political circumstancesunder which the apps were developed and public communication,similarities between them were identified in the area of public trust in theapps and their utilisation. In both countries, certain illiberal issues wererecognised as well.