BERLIN, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The app (application) called "Corona-Datenspende" (Corona Data Donation) that was launched by Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI) raises data security concerns, according to an analysis conducted by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and published here on Tuesday.
The app would allow people to voluntarily and anonymously share information from their fitness trackers that could reveal signs of a COVID-19 infection.
Although the CCC -- Europe's largest association of hackers -- has not succeeded in directly accessing the data collected via the app, "the risks are not sustainable in the long term," the Germany-based organization noted.
The CCC has presented its findings to the RKI, which was followed by a "constructive exchange about possible attack scenarios," an RKI spokesperson told Xinhua on Tuesday. "Some hints and recommendations of the CCC were immediately implemented by our technical service provider."
One safety flaw found by the CCC was that most of the data was obtained by the RKI directly from the provider of the fitness tracker or Google Fit before anonymization.
Another problem was that direct access by the RKI server to the data had not been automatically terminated even if the app was uninstalled by the users, according to the CCC.
"The security of the data transmitted by the users was not compromised at any time," the RKI spokesperson said. Information about the app's data protection features would be "further specified immediately to avoid possible misunderstandings," he added.
According to the RKI, the data collected could "help scientists to better detect and understand the spread of the coronavirus." Some 400,000 volunteers in Germany are currently transmitting data from their fitness tracker via the coronavirus data donation app. Enditem
