Peter Liese promotes the Corona App / Compatibility with European data protection standards guaranteed
 

"We have to avoid hundreds of thousands of additional death through the corona crisis and at the same time avoid additional millions of unemployed in the Europe Union. That is why the use of modern technology in line with the European data protection standards is crucial", said MEP Peter Liese, spokesperson for health of biggest political group in The Europe Parliament (EPP - Christian Democrats). We are still seeing several thousands of people dying from the corona virus every day in Europe. While the figures are going down in many countries like Spain, Italy and Germany there are still critical developments for example in the UK where almost 900 people died in the last 24 hours. I am also very concerned about countries like Romania where we don´t have enough information on how the virus really spreads. At the same time, millions of people are suffering from the economic consequences of the lockdown. I fully understand the wish to go back to normal life. This is not only an economic question, but I also understand that many people are suffering psychologically. We have a risk of for example children loosing track when they do not go to school and of domestic violence. That is why we need to do everything to overcome the lockdown. However, I am very pessimistic that we can ease the lockdown significantly without putting the lives of ten thousand people at risk. That is why I am really convinced that we need to use modern technology like the corona-app. The nature of the disease is that many, many people transmit an infection without showing any symptoms. With our traditional methodology, identifying contact persons and trying to inform them in the traditional way we can just not control the disease. That is why an app that warns everyone that had a risky contact with an infected person is indispensable. Scientists that have been united in the European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) initiative consortium European wide have developed a technology that is completely in line with the European data protection provisions. That is why I encourage member states to establish the app which must of course be compatible with other apps in other European countries and I encourage citizens to use it”, said Peter Liese.