Coun­cil of Sta­tes appro­ves urgent amend­ment to pan­de­mic law (pro­xi­mi­ty tra­cing system)

The Fede­ral Office of Public Health (FOPH) is curr­ent­ly test­ing the Cont­act Tra­cing App (“pro­xi­mi­ty tra­cing system”) to noti­fy indi­vi­du­als who have been poten­ti­al­ly expo­sed to coro­na­vi­rus (Covid-19). For this tri­al ope­ra­ti­on, on May 13, 2020, the Fede­ral Coun­cil appro­ved the “Covid 19 Regu­la­ti­on Pilot Test Pro­xi­mi­ty Tra­cing”, which is limi­t­ed in time until June 30, 2020. The Fede­ral Coun­cil has also adopted the “Mes­sa­ge on an urgent amend­ment to the Epi­de­mics Act in con­nec­tion with the coro­na­vi­rus (pro­xi­mi­ty tra­cing system).” has been draf­ted. Today, the Coun­cil of Sta­tes has alre­a­dy appro­ved the amend­ment in prin­ci­ple. The Draft has under­go­ne only a few chan­ges. For exam­p­le, the app is to be dis­con­tin­ued not only as soon as it is no lon­ger nee­ded to mana­ge the coro­na­vi­rus epi­de­mic, but also as soon as it pro­ves to be insuf­fi­ci­ent­ly effec­ti­ve. The Natio­nal Coun­cil will con­sider the deal next Mon­day. If it also appro­ves it, the law will come into force on July 1, 2020 at the latest.

The FDPIC has sup­port­ed the tri­al ope­ra­ti­on of the app with State­ment of May 11, 2020 alre­a­dy con­side­red to be per­mis­si­ble in prin­ci­ple under data pro­tec­tion law. Accor­ding to the FDPIC, the data pro­tec­tion-fri­end­ly approach of the app is reflec­ted in par­ti­cu­lar in the fol­lo­wing aspects of the design:

• it is only based on the pro­xi­mi­ty bet­ween users, no loca­ti­on data is collected;
• no iden­ti­fi­ca­ti­on exch­an­ge with smart­phones wit­hout instal­led mobi­le app;
• based on the chan­ging Eph­eme­ral IDs (the­se are ran­dom iden­ti­fiers that depend on the cur­rent pri­va­te key), it is not pos­si­ble to track peo­p­le and devices;
• as long as the­re is no report from a veri­fi­ed, infec­ted per­son, no data will be uploa­ded to the server;
• only cont­act situa­tions of two meters or less are recor­ded and result in a noti­fi­ca­ti­on if they last a total of at least 15 minu­tes per day;
• the dura­ti­on of data reten­ti­on is limi­t­ed to its useful­ness in detec­ting pos­si­ble infections;
• the use of the system is limi­t­ed to the dura­ti­on of the pandemic;
• the system is based on a decen­tra­li­zed approach.

In the Goog­le Play Store, the app “Swis­s­Co­vid” can alre­a­dy be down­loa­ded. Howe­ver, the use is curr­ent­ly only inten­ded for par­ti­ci­pan­ts of the tri­al operation.