Božinović: The ‘Stop COVID-19’ Application is Safe, Passed All Necessary Certifications

The Croatian health and IT sectors have developed and presented the Croatian version of the mobile application 'Stop COVID-19' – a voluntary, transparent, and temporary application that uses temporary and anonymous data for anonymous notifications about exposure to the coronavirus.

The application is available for mobile devices on Android and Apple platforms and uses Bluetooth technology. It was presented at the Ministry of Health by Minister Vili Beroš and the CEO of APIS, Saša Bilić.

The Minister emphasized that the goal of the application is to improve the epidemiological picture by increasing the effectiveness of traditional methods of detecting close contacts with the help of technology that enables quick notification of individuals who have been exposed to the coronavirus.

– This is a voluntary, useful mobile application for anonymous notification about exposure to COVID-19, and its success is based on the conscientious and solidary participation of citizens – emphasized Beroš during the presentation and expressed hope that citizens will use it.

He stressed that the application is completely voluntary, transparent, and temporary.

– Once the threat from the pandemic passes, the mobile application will no longer be usable, it is cyber-secure and uses temporary and anonymous data. Therefore, there is no collection of any kind, nor at any location, of data about the application users –  emphasized Beroš.

Božinović stated that the application is completely safe and has passed all necessary certifications.

– The European Commission has stated that health authorities in each member state should be the ones managing this application. Simply put, it is communication between two mobile phones, where the one that potentially receives a message that it was near an infected person does not know who that person is, and the infected person can activate this application only if they wish –  said Božinović.

The application does not collect personal data and its cross-border interoperability is ensured, added Beroš, stating that if the threat of the coronavirus persists, it is only a matter of time before EU regulations will require all who cross borders to be users of the application.

The application was developed by APIS, based on a government decision, and evaluated by the Personal Data Protection Agency to ensure full compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation.

The CEO of APIS highlighted that the application is interoperable among different application systems, and for data protection and privacy, mobile phones exchange so-called keys, i.e., random strings of characters.

Epidemiologist Tomislav Benjak from HZJZ emphasized that in the development of the application, alongside the IT sector, epidemiological experts, primary health care, and in some segments, the hospital system participated.

Application users will receive messages indicating whether they have had high, medium, or low-risk contact based on precisely defined parameters, he emphasized.

We made sure that it is distance-based – a high-risk message is when a person is within two meters for more than 15 minutes in the past 48 hours –  he explained.

At that moment, the user receives a message that they have been in high-risk contact, to stay at home and contact their family doctor, and in a similar way, messages for medium and low-risk contacts have been created, he added.

To date, about ten EU member states have developed their official mobile applications for contact tracing and notification of exposure to COVID-19 (Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, Latvia, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Ireland, France, and Hungary).

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