ZAGREB, November 20, 2020 - Cross-border sharing of data collected by Croatia's mobile application "Stop COVID 19" and data collected by other EU member-states' official applications was established on Thursday, the Croatian government said on its website on Thursday.

After Croatia's experts developed the application, it was underscored that tracking the contacts of people infected with Covid-19 by mobile phones is a voluntary epidemiological measure with strict respect for privacy and that it will depend on the epidemiological situation.

Data sharing practices in this field are in line with decisions and recommendations of the European Commission, the E-Zdravstvo (E-Health) service, and other European bodies.

Croatia has become the seventh EU member that can share data on ''infected keys''.  The other six countries are Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and Spain.

The EC says on its website that "tracing and warning apps can help break the chain of coronavirus infections, nationally and across borders, and save lives by complementing manual tracing."

Most Member States have launched a national contact tracing and warning app which can be used on a voluntary basis.

"The virus does not stop at borders. Therefore, in addition, the Member States, together with the Commission, have set up a new service to allow national apps to talk to each other across borders in Europe, so users will have to install a unique App which will allow them to be warned if they were in contact with someone who has indicated that they have tested positive for COVID-19."

Contact tracing and warning apps are only used voluntarily, based on Bluetooth proximity technology, respect users' privacy and do not enable the tracking of people's locations.

As Novac/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 5th of September, 2020, installing the STOP COVID-19 application may no longer be necessary for the monitoring of who you have been in contact with via your mobile phone. That is how it will become across the Atlantic in the USA in the next few days, but, it seems that we're still not quite there here in Croatia yet.

Apple and Google, which set a precedent and for the first time directly agreed on a technology collaboration through which they established iPhone and Android compatibility in the area of ​​contact tracking for coronavirus, have now gone one step further. They announced that they will enable official national health institutions to decide that the monitoring of coronavirus patient contacts can be done without the application.

However, with the latest version of iOS 13.7, which has recently started to be offered to users here in Croatia, Apple devices in Croatia don't yet activate the possibility to receive information about contacts that are positive for coronavirus and inform your contacts about you being positive for that virus directly from the operating system. Data for Android hasn't been obtained yet, as a new version of Google's mobile operating system is yet to come.

The Ministry of Economy isn't talking about this topic just yet and a response from the competent ministry on that issue is still awaited, because it is precisely the ministry that must make a decision on that. Well-informed sources of Jutarnji list point out that in the EU, and thus in Croatia, they don't expect Apple and Google to bypass the national authorities and directly offer the possibility of changing cryptographic keys and exposure notifications.

''National applications as well as interoperability between EU countries will still be needed to publish ''infected'' keys,'' a source explained. This is just another confirmation that the decision on the application of the new possibility in Croatia will eventually have to be made by the Ministry of Health.

Apple and Google initially built the technical ability for mobile phones to record and encrypt contacts into their respective operating systems. However, everything else, starting with the conditions for determining whether the contact is relevant, provides information that the owner of the mobile phone was potentially in contact with a confirmed infected person and voluntarily sends information that the owner has been confirmed to be coronavirus positive, therefore, all this should have been made possible by citizens' national health institutions through their own applications.

Unfortunately, countries around the world have proven to be out of line with this task. In Croatia, the national STOP COVID-19 mobile application appeared only at the peak of the tourist season, and not, as expected, before the season actually arrived. The STOP COVID-19 application became active in late July. But that's still good. So far, only six states in the United States have developed their own COVID applications. It's worth remembering there are a total of 57 federal states and territories in the United States. In addition, some of the applications aren't even compatible with each other, although this was the main goal for Apple and Google.

In the European Union, the situation is only slightly better, but as seen in the example of the Croatian STOP COVID-19 application, the number of its users isn't very large. The Android version of the app has been downloaded by more than 10,000 people so far, and the version for Apple ranks slightly better considering that the app is in the fifth place of being among the most sought after in the Health and Fitness category. For comparison, there are four million inhabitants in Croatia and almost all of them own mobile devices, and at least half of all smartphones are advanced enough to be able to install the STOP COVID-19 apps on them. Interestingly, those who use the app on both Google and Apple have given it some pretty good ratings. When it comes to Apple, 72 users left an average rating of 4.5, and on Google devices, 381 gave an average rating of 4.0.

Poor usage as well as a small number of countries that have created individual national apps have prompted Apple and Google to upgrade their OSes with the ability to do contact tracing without the app so it should come as no surprise if other changes follow.

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ZAGREB, July 27, 2020 - Croatia's health and IT sectors have developed and on Monday presented the Croatian version of the Stop COVID-19 app which uses temporary and anonymous data to inform users about exposure to coronavirus.

The app is available for Android and Apple mobile phones and uses Bluetooth technology.

The success of the app is based on the conscientious and solidary participation of citizens, said Health Minister Vili Beros.

After the pandemic is over, it will no longer be possible to use the app, which is secure and uses temporary and anonymous data.

The app's cross-border interoperability has also been ensured.

The app was designed under a government decision by the APIS IT agency for support to information systems and technologies.

"All data exchanged between two devices, i.e. two persons, is recorded only on mobile devices," said Sasa Bilic, chairman of APIS IT's management board.

Every user is informed anonymously that they have been in contact with infected persons sometime over the past 14 days. Users will be notified by text if the contact has been high, medium or low risk based on precisely defined parameters.

"We took distance into account. A text about a high risk is when a person has been two meters away for more than 15 minutes over the past 48 hours," said epidemiologist Tomislav Benjak.

The user will receive a text saying they have been in high-risk contact, to stay home and contact their family doctor. Texts about medium and low-risk contacts are created similarly.

A dozen EU member states (Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Latvia, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Ireland, France, and Hungary) have designed mobile apps to track contacts and inform users about exposure to COVID-19.

Bozinovic: App is secure, has all the necessary certificates

Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic, who heads the national COVID-19 response team, said the Stop COVID-19 app had all the necessary certificates.

"The European Commission said the health authorities in each member state should manage the app. Simply put, it's communication between two mobile phones. The person who possibly receives a text that they have been near an infected person doesn't know who this person is, and the infected person can activate the app only if they want to," he told press.

No third party can know anything about that communication, he said. "It couldn't be more secure. After all, the app has all the necessary certificates."