German police use COVID tracing app to find potential witnesses

From The Washington Post:

Police in the city of Mainz, near Frankfurt, successfully petitioned local health authorities to release data from an app called Luca when a man fell to his death after leaving a restaurant in November. They said they were seeking witnesses who had dined at the restaurant around the same time and reportedly found 21 people from the app data.

The apparent misuse of the data has been criticized by privacy advocates, who fear that such sensitive information will be used for non-pandemic-control purposes. The incident is also likely to provide fodder for vaccine doubters, some of whom have taken on a broader anti-government stance, and those who believe coronavirus-related conspiracy theories.

While I'm normally not one to give the benefit of the doubt the police, I am impressed that these authorities were actively trying to solve one specific crime, as opposed to broadly collecting more data than they could ever use just so they can assert some more control.

Still, this reminds me the ol' Clickhole classic "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point." Because cops abusing mobile phone location data is definitely bad!…But it's also not proof that the whole COVID-19 pandemic is actually a false flag something-or-other bullshit control scheme. Ugh.

German police used a tracing app to scout crime witnesses. Some fear that's fuel for covid conspiracists. [Rachel Pannett / The Washington Post]

Image: Public Domain via Pixabay