Moti­ons 20.3168 (SPK-SR) and 20.3144 (SPK-NR): Legal basis for the intro­duc­tion of the Coro­na war­ning app (Coro­na Pro­xi­mi­ty Tra­cing App).

Sub­mit­ted text

The Fede­ral Coun­cil is cal­led upon to pro­vi­de the neces­sa­ry legal basis for the intro­duc­tion of Coro­na war­ning apps (“Coro­na Pro­xi­mi­ty Tra­cing” app) to be sub­mit­ted to Par­lia­ment..

Only tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons should be used which Do not store per­so­nal data cen­tral­ly. The use of the app must be voluntary.

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

Wide­spread appli­ca­ti­on of pro­xi­mi­ty tra­cing by tra­cing chains of con­ta­gi­on can poten­ti­al­ly help address the cri­sis. At the same time, the poten­ti­al Inter­fe­rence with fun­da­men­tal rights during pro­xi­mi­ty tra­cing depen­ding on the design mas­si­ve. Howe­ver, due to the pos­si­ble serious encroach­ment on fun­da­men­tal rights, a request should in any case be made to Par­lia­ment for a par­lia­men­ta­ry sup­port­ed legal basis, and not to adopt an emer­gen­cy ordi­nan­ce of the Fede­ral Council.

In sub­stan­ti­ve terms, the Fede­ral Coun­cil is to decen­tra­li­zed solu­ti­on imple­ment. Such a decen­tra­li­zed solu­ti­on (in con­trast to cer­tain pro­jects in EU count­ries) is curr­ent­ly being pro­mo­ted in Switz­er­land by ETH/EPFL, among others. The instal­la­ti­on of such an app should also be voluntary.

State­ment of the Fede­ral Coun­cil of 1.5.2020

Digi­tal apps can be used as tools to sup­port the mea­su­res taken by the com­pe­tent can­to­nal aut­ho­ri­ties to con­tain the spread of the virus. This applies in par­ti­cu­lar to smart­phone apps that are deve­lo­ped using the Blue­tooth wire­less tech­no­lo­gy “Encoun­ters” bet­ween two smart­phones equip­ped with the cor­re­spon­ding app, which take place for lon­ger than 15 min and at a distance of less than two meters, are recor­ded decen­tral­ly and anony­mously (so-cal­led pro­xi­mi­ty tra­cing [PT]). Should a user of the PT app test posi­ti­ve for SARS-CoV‑2, he or she can be anony­mously acti­va­te the noti­fi­ca­ti­on ser­vice. Depen­ding on the date of the first sym­ptoms of the per­son tested posi­ti­ve, tho­se PT-App users will be -.User noti­fi­edwho had a cont­act event with the posi­tively tested per­son during the infec­tious peri­od. This allo­ws the noti­fi­ed users to vol­un­t­a­ri­ly enter self-qua­ran­ti­ne and to vol­un­t­a­ri­ly cont­act the cen­tral fede­ral hot­line for any fur­ther clarifications.

The enti­re PT-App system is equip­ped with inno­va­ti­ve cryp­to­gra­phic methods and a strong decen­tra­li­zed data pro­ce­s­sing geared to the fact that as pos­si­ble no infor­ma­ti­on on spe­ci­fic or iden­ti­fia­ble per­sons (per­so­nal data) are pre­sent. Loca­ti­on infor­ma­ti­on is at all not recor­dedbut only well pro­tec­ted from misu­se, encrypt­ed data con­cer­ning the cont­act events. As befo­re and will con­ti­n­ue to know only the atten­ding phy­si­ci­an or the atten­ding phy­si­ci­an as well as the alre­a­dy exi­sting Can­to­nal Cont­act Tra­cing Cen­ter the iden­ti­ty of the infec­ted per­son. Only they can also iden­ti­fy an infec­ted per­son by trans­mit­ting an anony­mous Aut­ho­rizati­on codes to noti­fy the system of the infec­tion in an anony­mous form. The fact that a noti­fi­ed per­son may be able to infer who the noti­fi­ca­ti­on ori­gi­na­ted from based on his or her memo­ry of social cont­acts over the past few days is no dif­fe­rent with tra­di­tio­nal cont­act tracking.

In the view of the Natio­nal COVID-19 Sci­ence Taskforce con­ve­ned by the Fede­ral Coun­cil, a very high level of accep­tance and dis­se­mi­na­ti­on among the popu­la­ti­on is neces­sa­ry for the PT app to add effec­ti­ve value in con­tai­ning the spread of the virus. From the per­spec­ti­ve of the Fede­ral Data Pro­tec­tion and Infor­ma­ti­on Com­mis­sio­ner (FDPIC), the Natio­nal Ethics Com­mit­tee (NEK) and the Fede­ral Office of Justi­ce (FOJ), the fol­lo­wing con­di­ti­ons must be met when using the PT app. Basic prin­ci­ples be gua­ran­teed: Vol­un­t­a­ri­ness at all levels, Avo­i­ding the pro­ce­s­sing of per­so­nal­ly iden­ti­fy­ing data as far as pos­si­ble, good Abu­se pro­tec­tion through tech­ni­cal and orga­nizatio­nal mea­su­res, time cons­traint of the deployment on the dura­ti­on of the cri­sis as well as tem­po­ral Rest­ric­tion of data sto­rage to the ext­ent neces­sa­ry in each case (cont­act data only for as long as the per­son con­cer­ned could be affec­ted by an infec­tion accor­ding to epi­de­mio­lo­gi­cal fin­dings; the other data at most for the dura­ti­on of the crisis).

Accor­din­gly, the work for a Swiss PT app (fede­ral admi­ni­stra­ti­on in col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with EPFL and ETH) has always been based on the cor­ner­s­tone of the Vol­un­t­a­ri­ness at all levels (in par­ti­cu­lar, down­loa­ding and instal­ling the appli­ca­ti­on; swit­ching on the Blue­tooth wire­less tech­no­lo­gy; using the other func­tions such as ente­ring pro­of of a posi­ti­ve test and noti­fy­ing other users). In a mir­ror image, vol­un­t­a­ri­ness at all levels was and is also the cen­tral requi­re­ment of all legal bases that have been deve­lo­ped so far.

The requi­re­ments deman­ded by the moti­on for the “Decen­tra­li­ty” and “anony­mi­ty” are inher­ent in the system archi­tec­tu­re the Swiss PT app, which is free­ly available on the Inter­net (open source). Sin­ce the PT app is a vol­un­t­a­ry digi­tal tool for peo­p­le working in the Epi­de­mics Act (SR 818.101), which ful­fills the other requi­re­ments men­tio­ned abo­ve, the neces­sa­ry legal basis for the pro­ce­s­sing of health data alre­a­dy exists. Against this back­ground and in accordance with the con­cerns of the moti­on, the Fede­ral Coun­cil can act within the scope of its powers under epi­de­mic law. An emer­gen­cy ordi­nan­ce is neither neces­sa­ry nor envi­sa­ged. The Fede­ral Coun­cil intends to limit its ordi­nan­ce to a rela­tively short peri­od of time and will, of cour­se, adapt the regu­la­ti­on and the system should the legis­la­tu­re make cor­re­spon­ding spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons in the meantime.

All work is alre­a­dy well advan­ced. Such an app is inten­ded for the popu­la­ti­on Usable throug­hout Switz­er­land from May 2020 be. Detail­ed infor­ma­ti­on on the Swiss PT app, the adjust­ments to the legal basis requi­red for its use, and con­side­ra­ti­ons on any flan­king mea­su­res (e.g. in the area of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons) will be sub­mit­ted to the Fede­ral Coun­cil on May 8, 2020.

It is urgent and important to pro­vi­de the PT app to the socie­ty as soon as pos­si­ble to sup­port the gra­du­al rela­xa­ti­on of the lock­down. Against the back­ground that all the con­cerns of the moti­on are ulti­m­ate­ly metthe Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­ses that the moti­on be rejected.

The Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­ses that the moti­on be rejected.