Mobile tracing applications regularly lead the news. While, on the previous day, the Commission and the Member States presented guidelines on the issue of interoperability, on Thursday 14 May it was the European Parliament’s turn to take up the debate. However, none of these initiatives has yet succeeded in addressing the key issue of a centralised or decentralised model.
In their exchange of views, MEPs highlighted a series of basic principles underlying the development and application of contact tracing applications. They recalled, as already emphasised in the Commission Recommendation, its toolkit, and its guidelines, that these services should be voluntary, privacy friendly and based on Bluetooth rather than geolocation (see EUROPE 12464/7, 12468/5 and 12486/8). Several MEPs, including Karen Melchior (Renew Europe, Denmark) and Paul Tang (S&D, Netherlands), said these applications should not be “immunity passports”.
But there are still two approaches
Once again, the question of interoperability between two models - the centralised approach, chosen by France, Poland and the Czech Republic, and the decentralised approach, chosen by Germany, Austria and Italy - was raised without this issue being fully resolved.
“Both approaches can be compatible with privacy and need to follow the highest standards of data security. From a data minimisation perspective, the decentralised approach is preferable, since less data would be stored on the backend server. Regardless of the approach, the applications must be interoperable”, said Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.
When asked about the multiplicity of both national and regional applications, he replied: “It is better to see the development of different applications than a single European application that would have hampered innovation”.
For their part, the French MEPs from the Renew Europe Group stressed in a written declaration that, between these approaches, there is a third way. The latter is currently being studied in France, through the ‘Désiré’ protocol.
Following the interoperability guidelines, the Commission should soon publish clear technological parameters (see EUROPE 12486/8). The Croatian Presidency of the EU Council announced in Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties on 12 May that it would send a letter to the Member States on this subject. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)