The new contact-tracing app to be
used in phase two of the coronavirus emergency will respect
security and privacy, commissioner Domenico Arcuri said Tuesday.
Arcuri said the alternative to the app, whose development is
now being finalized, was "more deprivation of liberty".
The commissioner stressed that the app would remain
voluntary, saying that reports of its being made compulsory were
a "farce".
Every smartphone that the app is installed on will regularly
emit an anonymous ID code that can be picked up by other
smartphones using the same app in the area - within a few
metres.
If one of the app users reports that they have tested
positive for the coronavius, the system makes it possible to
inform the people with whom they have been close to in the
previous few days.
Arcuri said there would be "no hasty decision on phase two"
and that the issue of facemasks was a "closed subject" since
there are reserves of them.
He also said that Italy had more ventilators than
intensive-care patients.
He added that Italy was the country that had taken more swabs
for he virus than any other, and that a contract for serum tests
would be granted on Friday.
Arcuri also said he was "very confident" that the problem of
a maximum price for facemasks would be "soon solved".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
