No issue, just a question: What is the status of NotifyMe?

[r-r-liu]

Has NotifyMe been piloted yet? How long before it's "ready for prime time"? I have nightmares about restaurants, theaters, cinemas, etc. propagating any and all manner of registration app, to the use of which desperate customers agree without wasting a thought on verifiable privacy protection.

[ubfelix]

Hi @r-r-liu,

Thanks for your question. NotifyMe is currently being piloted at EPFL. You can find a very informative Q&A here: https://www.epfl.ch/campus/security-safety/en/health/coronavirus-covid19/covid-apps/notifyme/

I hope this answers your question.

[r-r-liu]

Hi Matthias, Just as I feared. You do realize, don’t you, that with the opening of outdoor terraces guests are being requested, resp. forced, to scan QR-codes without any indication of how much personal data they must supply, where it will be stored, who will be able to access it under what circumstances, etc. Nor do they seem to care. And the app has been in pilot since January - I assume January 2021. This is very, very frustrating. Dare I predict that it will face quite an uphill battle to displace the plethora of apps that are presently being propagated? Isn’t it time to approach a canton? If the history of SwissCovid teaches us something, it’s this: The quality of the app has little to do with its reception. Now, even the Swiss COVID-19 Scientific Task Force has ceased to recommend its use in its press conferences, and the cantons, seemingly without exception, swear up and down that contact tracing is working, when the high incidence of new cases says otherwise. The simple yet brilliant strategy of both SwissCovid and NotifyMe to notify close, resp. presence contacts directly relieves contact tracers of the most time-consuming aspects of their job. I really miss somebody emphasizing this during the BAG points de presse. Regards, Richard

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On 27 Apr 2021, at 08:37 , Matthias Felix ***@***.***> wrote: Hi @r-r-liu, Thanks for your question. NotifyMe is currently being piloted at EPFL. You can find a very informative Q&A here: https://www.epfl.ch/campus/security-safety/en/health/coronavirus-covid19/covid-apps/notifyme/ I hope this answers your question. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[r-r-liu]

More to the ramifications of such a prolonged pilot. At 17:35 SRF reported:

Zentrale Datenbank für Restaurantbesuche im Kanton Bern

Restaurantbetreiber im Kanton Bern müssen ab dem 10. Mai die Daten ihrer Gäste direkt in eine neue, zentrale Datenbank eingeben. Das hat die Berner Regierung beschlossen. Sie will damit das Contact Tracing bei Restaurantbesuchern verbessern.

Wie die Berner Regierung am Mittwoch mitteilte, kämpft das kantonale Contact-Tracing-Team bisher oft mit Schwierigkeiten, wenn es gilt, bei Restaurantbetreibern Kontaktdaten von Gästen einzuholen. Beispielsweise ist die für den Betrieb verantwortliche Person nicht erreichbar oder die Angaben der Gäste stimmen nicht.

Well, it comes as no surprise that the cantonal Contact Tracing "team" is up to its ears in work. The answer, however, is not a central database of contacts, but an app that relieves contact tracers of routinely contacting close/presence contacts. We all know this. So why doesn't Bern?