coronavirus Archives - Page 2 of 5

Serbia Keeps COVID-19 Medical Procurement Data Under Wraps

Posted on August 31, 2020January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Serbia’s National Insurance Health Fund, RFZO, the public institution responsible for medical supplies procurement in Serbia, has declined to answer an FOIA request from BIRN about the amount of medical equipment purchased during the epidemic, the names of suppliers and how much money was spent on it, saying the government had classified such data “top secret” at the outset of the pandemic.

“Data on medical devices, medical equipment, personal and protective equipment, sanitary and medical consumables procured in Serbia during the state of emergency caused by COVID-19, as well as documentation on it, are marked with the security classification ‘top secret,’” RFZO said in a written answer to BIRN.

Under the government’s decision from March 15, which RFZO quoted, information about public procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic will not be made available to the public until the pandemic ends.

In its request sent on August 12, BIRN asked about the quantity of purchased protective masks, protective suits, gloves, hats and tests for COVID-19 and the total amount of money spent on them.

BIRN also asked about the prices at which this equipment was sold to pharmacies, as well as about the registration of medical equipment at the Medicines and Medical Devices Agency of Serbia, which is necessary for the import and placement of those goods on the Serbian market.

Besides that, BIRN requested information about the total amount spent out of 9.5 billion dinars, which the Serbian government transferred to RFZO on March 31, 2020, “in order to mitigate the consequences of COVID-19 disease”. That point was left unanswered, too.

Serbia reported the first cases of COVID-19 in the beginning of March and declared a state of emergency on March 15 that lasted until May 6.

During that time, Serbia was criticised for deciding to lengthen the time state bodies have to answer FOIA requests. It left many journalists having to wait until the state of emergency was lifted before their requests could be answered.

Serbia’s government faces many questions about its general response to the pandemic, amid claims that there was a lack of necessary medical equipment, among other things.

At the end of June, BIRN revealed that Serbia had under-reported COVID-19 deaths and infections. Data from the state’s COVID-19 information system showed that the number of infected patients who had died was twice as large as the number that the authorities announced. Hundreds more people had tested positive for the virus in June than was admitted.

Pandemic May Reshape North Macedonia Media Landscape for Good

Posted on August 28, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

In March this year, as COVID-19 shut down North Macedonia, Ivana Ramadanova was working from home on a story about textile workers being laid off when she got her own marching orders from the news portal Lokalno.mk.

Management told Ramadanova, 36, and three other journalists they would not be needed from the beginning of April. Ramadanova complained to the Labour Inspectorate, arguing she had been fired based on a termination agreement she never signed. But when the company was ordered to take her back, it did so on worse terms. Ramadanova found somewhere else to work.

“It’s a horrible feeling,” she told BIRN. “When someone needs you, you’re good, but at the very first sign of a crisis they get rid of you.”

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, advertising revenues in the media sector have nose-dived around the world, triggering a wave of job losses.

North Macedonia is no different, but the precarious financial state of many media outlets in the Balkan country even before the pandemic means some face a fight to survive. Coupled with new work practices to adhere to social-distancing regulations, the pandemic has the potential to reshape the sector like never before.

“We have a decline in advertising of about 70 per cent,” said Atanas Kirovski, director and editor of Telma TV and head of the Macedonian Media Association, MMA, which represents five television broadcasters with national frequencies.

“It is happening all over the world, and we are no exception,” he told BIRN. “Our business directly depends on the situation. If it takes two years, I do not believe that all media in the country will survive. If it ends earlier, they still have a chance.”

Aid package ‘helpful at the moment’

Two years is the timeframe the World Health Organisation has put on efforts to rein in the novel coronavirus, providing a vaccine proves safe and effective.

Few in North Macedonia believe the state has the resources to keep media outlets alive that long.

According to a survey conducted by the Independent Trade Union of Journalists, 73 per cent of respondents said they needed financial assistance, and 30 per cent said they knew someone in the sector who had lost a job in recent months due to the crisis.

Since March, the state has provided three million euros in aid to the media sector, in the form of direct injections and tax breaks. Of that figure, 1.7 million went to 116 broadcasters, including 500,000 euros to the public broadcaster.

For a period of three months, the state took on the burden of health and pension contributions for employees of media companies that had managed to avoid any layoffs.

Media outlets also benefitted from a blanket aid package for all companies in the country by which the government covered up to 14,500 denars [235 euros] of each employee’s monthly salary.

Kirovski said the measures had cut Telma TV’s financial burden by about 20,000 euros and that the company was able to make regular salary payments.

“The government measures are helpful at the moment,” he said.

Infographic: BIRN

Dangers of state support

That the likes of respected global media giants The Guardian and the BBC have announced job losses since the onset of the pandemic has sent shockwaves through the global media industry.

“When practically two symbols of quality journalism show that they cannot cope with the crisis, what remains for others?” asked Brankica Petkovic, head of the Centre for Media Policy at the Peace Institute in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana.

While it is only normal in such circumstances that public and private media should turn to the state for help, Petkovic told BIRN, it is crucial that they guard their editorial independence.

This is particularly pertinent in North Macedonia, where the current Social Democrat-led government has yet to fully address the clientelism that characterised relations between the state and the media under former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski between 2006 and 2016.

Mladen Chadikovski, head of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, said the aid risked turning into a trap.

“When there is a state of emergency as it is now, whether it is officially declared or not, there are dangers of passing solutions that are problematic,” Chadikovski told BIRN. “We would not like to use this period to establish a media fund that would remain and create risks of influencing editorial policy.”

He said media would be better off receiving aid in the former of tax breaks rather than direct transfers from state coffers.

Aid can’t last long

Some media experts believe the recession triggered by the pandemic and the widespread closure of businesses may do what no government or regulator in North Macedonia has dared – cut the number of media outlets.

North Macedonia confronted the pandemic with an unreformed public broadcaster, 115 commercial broadcasting companies, 12 newspapers, hundreds of Internet portals and an advertising pie of about 15-20 million euros.

“The media scene is already in big trouble – many media outlets and a small advertising market,” said Chadikovski. “If the crisis continues, these problems will increase.”

Goran Mihajlovski, owner and editor of the portal Sakam da kazham (sdk.mk), said online journalism was particularly vulnerable. Registered as a non-governmental organisation, his portal also benefits from donor-funded projects.

“If we were dependent on advertisements, we would have not existed either,” he said.

Dejan Georgievski of the Media Development Center, which provides legal and advocacy support to media workers in North Macedonia, said the aid provided by the state was not a long-term solution.

“The aid cannot last more than a few months, half a year at most,” he said

Georgievski is one of only a few media experts in the country to say a reduction in the size of the media sector would not necessarily be a bad thing.

“Those who are lucky to survive will have more resources at their disposal that will help their sustainability and help them offer better content, better information, but also be less dependent on public money and free of any economic and other types of pressure,” he told BIRN.

Working practices changed

Illustration: Unsplash.com

The pandemic has not changed only the financial outlook for media outlets.

Social distancing measures have dramatically altered how journalists do their jobs.

“We have introduced work in shifts, so that if a colleague becomes infected and others have to go into isolation, the other shift can cover the work,” said Telma TV’s Kirovski. “But that meant that we always worked at 50 per cent capacity, while the other 50 per cent was on standby.”

Journalists at most Internet portals and some print media worked from home, encountering the same problems as those in other professions in balancing work and childcare. Smaller newsrooms struggled to adhere to government requirements that the parents of children under 10 years of age be exempted from work.

“I had to be a journalist, a babysitter and a mother at the same time, and the editor was not interested,” said one journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “If I wasn’t online for 15 minutes he would immediately ask where I was.”

Movement restrictions and limited access to data and interviewees have hurt the quality of output, both in terms of content and technical quality.

“Of course it had an impact on the quality of work – the shifts are smaller, there are fewer journalists, editors, cameramen, editors available,” said Chadikovski.

Mihajlovski of Sakam da kazham said: “It’s not easy when you can’t go into the field, talk to people, but instead you have to work from a distance.”

Those who could not work from home or online paid a different price.

“We have to attend all the events, because of which we are constantly under stress, having even panic attacks,” said a journalist of a regional radio station who declined to be named.

Another, in Skopje, told BIRN: “I was talking to a mayor, who shook my hand to say goodbye. I returned the greeting so as not to be rude. A few days later, when he announced that he tested positive for the virus, I was in a terrible panic for the next two weeks.”

“Obviously one moment of carelessness is enough,” said Hristina Belovska, a reporter at TV 24 Television who tested positive during North Macedonia’s July parliamentary election.

“Our work is fieldwork and that cannot be changed. We were provided with protective equipment, we also had training on how to protect ourselves and recommendations not to put ourselves at risk. However, I ended up positive. I discovered it by accident and I do not know how it happened. It just shows how serious the situation with the virus is.”

In the survey conducted by the Independent Trade Union of Journalists, 22 per cent of respondents said they had not been provided with protective equipment.

Nothing will be the same

Ironically, given the financial strain on media, audiences have grown during the pandemic, with television broadcasters reaching twice or three times their usual number of viewers per day between January and June, compared to the same period of 2019 and 2018, according to surveys conducted by the Agency of Audiovisual Media Services.

For example, the percentage of respondents who said they had watched Kirovski’s Telma TV the day before, grew from 12 to 32.

“Undoubtedly, the fact that many people stayed at home and that something completely new was happening that affected everyone and that affected our daily lives, such as the spread of the coronavirus, contributed to a significant increase in media interest,” said Magdalena Davidovska Dovleva, head of the Agency’s Sector for Research and Long-Term Development.

It remains to be seen which of these changes will stick long-term, but all of BIRN’s interlocutors agreed the media landscape will be altered for good.

“The coronavirus has deepened the problems in the media sphere, but it may also help us find faster solutions,” said Petkovic of the Peace Institute in Ljubljana.

This project is financially supported by The Royal Norweigan Embassy in Belgrade. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of The Royal Norweigan Embassy, the Balkan Trust for Democracy, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, or its partners.

Serbian Police Attack Journalists In Second Night of Clashes

Posted on July 9, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Serbian police clashed with thousands of angry citizens on Wednesday night, on the second day of protests against the official handling of the coronavirus crisis and the announced reimposition of restrictive measures, including a curfew on weekend. Besides the capital city of Belgrade, protests were held in other cities, including Novi Sad, Nis, Kragujevac and Smederevo.

In Belgrade, violent clashes with police lasted hours, with police using tear gas to disperse crowds. In Kragujevac, protesters smashed some of the windows of the police building.

Protesters in Novi Sad threw rocks and rubbish bins at the windows of the ruling Progressive Party facilities, at Radio Television of Vojvodina and at city hall, breaking some windows.

Miran Pogacar, one of the people who called for protests in Novi Sad, blamed pro-government infiltrators for the violence in Novi Sad. Pogacar was arrested some hours later and is still in custody.

In Belgrade, 19 policemen and 17 protesters were injured on Wednesday night, according to city hospital data.

Cameras caught numerous examples of the police using excessive force, with several attacks on journalists also reported.

Journalists from Nova.rs portal, Beta news agency, as well as from the Serbian public broadcaster RTS were all attacked while covering the protests on Wednesday night – the latter by the protesters.

Three journalists of Nova.rs said they were attacked by police, although they had identified themselves as journalists.

Marko Radonjic said he was hit by a police baton and threatened with arrest. Police hit another journalist, Milica Bozinovic while knocking her phone to the ground. Her colleague Natasa Latkovic’s journalists ID was thrown by the police, Nova.rs said.

Beta news agency said police injured their reporter, despite showing them a journalist’s ID. The journalist suffered cuts to his head and near his eye, and the police also returned to beat him while he was lying on the ground.

“They beat him with batons, even though he let them know that a journalist was on duty, even when he fell to the ground,” Beta said.

In Nis, protesters surrounded the journalist and the cameraman from Radio Television of Serbia, RTS, insulted them and grabbed their microphones and camera cables, while the cameramen was hit on the head with a bottle.

The violence stopped after journalists from Juzne vesti intervened and helped their colleagues escape the area. RTS has been widely criticized by protesters for not properly reporting the rallies.

The SafeJournalists network, which represents more than 8,200 media professionals in the Western Balkans, on Thursday condemned the violence against journalists and asked the authorities to guarantee their rights to work.

“In accordance with its mandate, the police must ensure a safe working environment for journalists and must determine who and why has violated their rights during the protest. It must determine whether the powers of the police have been exceeded and, if so, prosecute the responsible persons,” it said.

Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said on Wednesday night at a press conference that the police had acted with restraint while they were pelted with stones and torches and had reacted in self-defence.

“They started intervening when the violence became unbearable and when their lives were in danger,” Stefanovic said.

Tanja Fajon, president of the European Parliament’s Stabilization and Association Committee between Serbia and the EU, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the footage from Serbia looked brutal and that the safety and health of people should come in the first place.

“The use of force is unacceptable. Angry people accuse President Vucic of deliberately concealing the real health picture [with COVID-19] until the recent elections. Safety and health of people are in the first place. But not with repression,” Fajon wrote on Twitter. .

President Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday blamed far-right organisations, anti-migrant extremists and fantasists who “believe the Earth is a flat plate” for the violence.

“These people were not talking about coronavirus – they were talking about some kind of betrayal, about migrants, the 5G network and the earth as a flat plate, and these people were not there for the first time, only their degree of aggression was higher,” Vucic said.

He added that one reason for the protest was to weaken the position of Serbia ahead of the continuation of the EU-aided dialogue with Kosovo.

Violent protests erupted on Tuesday evening after Vucic announced that, due to the rise in COVID-19 cases, the capital might again be under a curfew this weekend.

During the now lifted state of emergency, Serbian citizens spent several whole weekends under curfews. Serbia was one of few countries in Europe to impose such tough measures.

Critics accused the President of manipulating health measures for his own political gains. He lifted heavy restrictions ahead of the elections on June 21.

In the run-up to the election, no restrictions were in place. During that time, political parties held rallies, the government allowed football games to take place in the presence of thousands of people, while the state Crisis Staff said situation with the coronavirus was no longer alamring.

The day after the elections, BIRN published an investigation that showed that more than twice as many infected patients had died in Serbia than the authorities announced, and hundreds more people had tested positive for the virus in than was admitted.

After the elections, when the numbers of deaths and infections again started to increase, many towns and cities in Serbia announced states of emergency linked to the pandemic.

Pandemic Worsens Crisis for Media in Central, Eastern Europe

Posted on July 3, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

The COVID-19 pandemic in nine countries of Central and Eastern Europe has caused major difficulties to the media in continuing their work, especially the print media, and has further undermined press freedom, a report published on Friday by the Berlin-based media NGO n-ost said.

The report looks at the situation facing the media in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Its main conclusions are that the pandemic has accelerated the transition from print to online media, but that “recent surges in online readership have not translated into more financial stability”.

It said that the “lockdowns have caused print media sales and advertising revenue to collapse” and that “various emergency laws and provisions allowed governments increased control over public information”.

While the economic situation differs from country to country, the situation in each with regards to media freedom tends to be similar.

The majority of governments in the region, it said, have used the health situation to tighten control over the information flow, limiting access to COVID-19-related data beyond those officially announced, for example.

Some countries, like Serbia or Hungary, passed laws or regulations penalizing reporting on unauthorized information.

Some media outlets in Bulgaria either cut pay for journalists during the crisis, or fired staff, or shut down entire newsrooms.

The situation is especially hard for Bulgarian regional publications, “which have been struggling to stay afloat for years, [and] are expected to bear the brunt of the coronavirus-related crisis”, the report said.

According to the same report, the COVID-19 pandemic has also hit freelance journalists in Croatia hard.

“According to a survey conducted by the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists in April, 28.7 per cent of 164 freelance journalists surveyed had had all their assignments (and 26 per cent most of their assignments) cancelled since the beginning of the crisis,” the report said.

Journalists watch on TV the broadcast of the program convention of President Andrzej Duda presented in the village of Szeligi, Poland on May 1, 2020. Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, the event takes place without the participation of the public. Photo: EPA-EFE/RADEK PIETRUSZKA POLAND OUT

In the Czech Republic, Respekt, one of the country’s most important print weeklies, “reported a 60-70 per cent drop in advertising revenues compared to pre-pandemic levels”, it noted. Similar falls happened in other print media.

“In contrast to print media, online news platforms recorded surging visitor numbers in March and April, in some cases increases of more than 100 per cent … However, figures from mid-May suggest that visitor numbers are returning to pre-crisis levels,” the report said.

The situation is similar in Poland and Hungary. Some two-thirds of Hungary’s media outlets told the Hungarian Publishers’ Association that the situation caused by the pandemic had caused major disruption to operations. One of the most affected areas is the advertising market.

“The stagnation of the advertising market played a significant role in the loss of revenue, which according to the advertising companies, may reduce the overall size of the market by 38 per cent, or HUF 75 billion [some 213,4 million EUR] in 2020 on a year-to-year basis,” the report said.

In North Macedonia, some media had to form their own internal solidarity fund in order to help colleagues that risk losing their jobs.

In Romania, businesses affected by the lockdown have stopped advertising, depriving the local media of one of their most important sources of income.

“Interviews with local media managers indicate that they have lost 70 to 80 per cent of their advertising budgets since the pandemic began, pushing them to the verge of collapse,” the report noted.

Serbia also noted a decrease in newspaper circulation during the crisis. Unofficial data that the report quotes say that “daily newspapers, with the exception of Danas, have seen a drop of between 35-50 per cent in circulation during the crisis”.

According to the report in Slovenia “the media’s advertising revenues have been slashed by a third after private companies went out of business”.

“Confronted by the crisis, media outlets have laid off staff, forcing journalists into the government’s special COVID-19 job retention scheme or cutting their salaries by 10 to 20 per cent,” the report said.

Question Marks over Slovak Quarantine App Fuel Privacy Concern

Posted on May 20, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

A lack of detail on a new smartphone app designed to help authorities in Slovakia track people in home quarantine is raising doubts about its compliance with data privacy rules and fuelling conspiracy theories.

With 28 confirmed deaths to date, Slovakia tops the chart of European countries with the lowest number of COVID-19 victims per capita, a source of pride for politicians and healthcare workers.

But the country is also one of the last in Central and Eastern Europe to introduce any kind of digital technology to help tackle the pandemic.

Last week, parliament passed a bill introducing an app to keep tabs on those in quarantine at home, after the country’s Constitutional Court halted development of a contact-tracing app that had triggered concern over the need for the mass collection of data.

The quarantine app was due to go live on May 18, but authorities postponed the launch saying more testing was needed.

Created by the Slovak IT firm Sygic, the app avoids the need for any mass collection of data, but a lack of detailed information, particularly regarding how the data will be stored and who will have access to it, has many Slovaks worried.

Data rights activists say that, while the government must do what it can to save lives, it must also be transparent in order to earn the trust of the people.

“We understand that this difficult time calls for quick and maybe non-traditional solutions, but we can’t forget the [need for] clear communication, which would dispel concerns about a possible abuse of private data,” said Andrea Cox, director of Digital Intelligence, which works to promote the protection of digital rights in Slovakia.

Last week, Slovak parliament passed a bill introducing an app to keep tabs on those in quarantine at home, after the country’s Constitutional Court halted development of a contact-tracing app that had triggered concern over the need for the mass collection of data. Photo: EPA-EFE/JUSTIN LANE

Constitution vs. public health

For the past two months, Slovaks returning to the country have had to go into state-run quarantine facilities where they are tested for the novel coronavirus and, if negative, allowed home.

But Slovakia’s government, led by Igor Matovic and his anti-establishment OLANO party, has faced widespread criticism over conditions at the facilities.

The government now says the new, voluntary app – based on face biometrics and movement data – will allow people to self-isolate at home if they would rather not enter a state-run facility.

The data will be monitored by the Slovak Public Health authority, which, under the new law, must destroy a person’s data as soon as the required quarantine period is over.

It is still not known, however, where the data that is collected will be stored and who will have access to it.

Introduction of the app follows a Constitutional Court ruling last week that suspended telecommunications legislation adopted in April and that cleared the way for the mass collection of data from smartphones, effectively slamming the brakes on development of a contact-tracing app. Judges ruled that the Telecommunications Act was not specific enough and left unclear how private data would be handled.

It lacked, they said, “necessary guarantees against the misuse of the processed private information” and means of independent oversight.

Matovic said he was confident the new home-quarantine technology would pass muster.

“I think the constitutional court decision cannot prevent us from making the quarantine stay more comfortable for people,” he told a press conference on May 14.

But data privacy advocates are unconvinced.

“It is unacceptable for apps that could affect the everyday life of Slovak citizens to not be communicated properly,” said Eliska Pirkova, Europe Policy Analyst at Access Now, an international data rights advocacy group, during an online discussion on May 15 about the erosion of data rights during the COVID-19 crisis in Slovakia.

“We all know that technologies have the power to discriminate and breach not just the right to privacy, but other rights too. This is what I see as a problem in Slovakia.”

Technology and public trust

Poor communication has created a vacuum in Slovakia filled by misinformation and conspiracy theories about a potential COVID-19 vaccine, the origin of the coronavirus and the threats to privacy proposed by new technology.

Marian Kotleba, leader of the neo-fascist People’s Party Our Slovakia, LSNS, that won eight per cent of votes in Slovakia’s February general election, has shared conspiracies about microchips being implanted into people against their will, while former Prime Minister Robert Fico, leader of SMER-SD, has accused Matovic’s government of planning to spy on people via their phone data.

According to survey conducted by the Slovak Academy of Sciences, a large majority of voters for both parties believe the coronavirus was created in a lab and deliberately disseminated, while just 40 per cent of Slovaks say they would get vaccinated against COVID-19 once a vaccine becomes available.

“Insufficient communication creates space for those who shout the loudest, although they often talk rubbish, from the absurdities about microchips and manipulations to the 5G networks,” Cox told the May 15 online discussion, referring to a conspiracy theory that 5G mobile technology helps spread the virus.

“We want to believe,” she said, “that in designing the latest technological solutions, the officials have kept in mind questions like digital exclusion or discrimination caused by the lack of internet access, or social oversight.”

Need for vigilance

As countries emerge from lockdown, the development of smartphone apps to combat the spread of COVID-19 is being watched with mounting concern by human rights organisations concerned at their potential for abuse.

“Some restrictions on people’s rights may be justifiable during a public health emergency, but people are being asked to sacrifice their privacy and turn over personal data for use by untested technologies,” Deborah Brown, senior digital rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said last week.

“Containing the pandemic and reopening society are essential goals, but we can do this without pervasive surveillance.”

Erik Lastic, head of the political science department at the Comenius University in Bratislava, said the pandemic had only further underlined the failure of the Slovak state to keep pace with technology. For years, corruption and incompetence have stymied efforts to create an effective digital public administration system.

“The last decade, at the least, has shown that the state is failing in the development of any information systems,” said Lastic, also taking part in the online discussion. “It would be very unrealistic to expect that the pandemic can suddenly change that.”

Lastic said it was “good” that legislation introduced to combat COVID-19 was limited to the end of 2020, but that the experience of some countries, particularly in sidestepping legal restraints in the fight against terrorism since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, showed the need for vigilance.

“It would be naïve to trust that the state would limit itself and that it wouldn’t use tools that had worked well for it once,” he said.

Hungarian Police Accused of Abusing Powers to Arrest Critics

Posted on May 13, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Police in Hungary on Wednesday at 6am detained an opposition politician, János Csóka-Szűcs, in Gyula, a small town in Békés County, the media outlet Magyar Narancs reported.

Csóka-Szűcs is the local leader of an opposition movement called the Kossuth Circle and a supporting member of the Momentum party.

Police raided his home and seized his mobile phone and computer, and he was detained and interrogated at the local police station.

Csóka-Szűcs was told that he was being questioned because of a Facebook post from April 20 that he published in a local group “Uncensored chatroom of Gyula,” which was suspected of fear-mongering.

He may face charges under a recent amendment to the criminal law that introduced punishments of one to five years in jail for spreading “falsehoods” or “distorted truth” deemed to obstruct the efforts to combat the pandemic.

This amendment was the part of the controversial Coronavirus Bill, which critics said gave almost “dictatorial” powers to the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.

In response to the arrest, the opposition Democratic Coalition said it was organising an “online demonstration”.

Katalin Cseh, an MEP from the Momentum movement, asked people on Twitter https://twitter.com/katka_cseh/status/1260528932392259587 to share the story of Csóka-Szűcs. She accused the police of abusing the law to detain critics of the Orbán-led government.

On April 20, when anti-government demonstrations were held in Budapest, and in the town of Gyula, Csóka-Szűcs shared a call for the demonstration, adding that “1,170 beds were emptied in Gyula as well” to deal with the pandemic.

His post referred to the country-wide anti-pandemic measure during which 60 per cent of all hospital beds were freed up to deal with COVID-19 patients.

In fact, in the local hospital, about 1,200 beds had been duly freed up. But, with this sentence, Csóka-Szűcs had allegedly “obstructed efforts to combat the pandemic”.

Csóka-Szűcs spent four hours in detention at the police station and had to walk home; police did not take him home despite the fact that he is disabled.

This was the second arrest in Hungary for fear-mongering in two days. On Tuesday, a 64-year-old man was detained by police near Szerencs in Borsod county.

He was questioned over a Facebook post he published on 28 April in which he had criticized the government’s anti-pandemic measures, claiming it had deliberately lifted the curfew restrictions at the peak of the pandemic to cause mass infections. He also addressed “Our dear dictator, our dear leader”, saying: “You are a cruel tyrant, but remember, all dictators have failed so far.”

The man, called András, talked later to 444 media outlet about his interrogation.

According to a statement on 5 May, police in Hungary had initiated 83 proceedings on suspicion of fear-mongering and 26 on suspicion of threatening public danger since the pandemic started.

For more information on the state of digital rights and violation amid the pandemic, check BIRN’s digital rights monitoring database.

Freedom of Information Curbs Alarm Rights Activists in Hungary

Posted on May 13, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

The Hungarian government’s decision to limit the application of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, is fueling fear among the opposition and civil society organisations that human rights face further curbs in the country.

Justified by the need to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the authorities can now use the personal data of citizens without clear regulations about when they can use it, and for what purpose.

Viktor Orban’s government has also additionally limited information access by extending the deadline for public institutions to provide requested data through FOI regulations from 15 to 45 days. The deadline can be prolonged for another 45 days meaning one could have to wait up to 90 days for answers – another step backwards in terms of media freedom.

The government says both decisions will be revoked once the state of the emergency, imposed on March 11, is lifted.

But rights groups and the opposition now fear a repeat of events in 2015. In that year, the Orban government introduced controversial “crisis” measures to stop an influx of migrants that are still in force today – despite the dramatic decline in the number of migrants and refugees coming to Hungary since then.

‘Crisis’ measures that risk becoming permanent

Attila Peterfalvi. Photo: Wikimedia commons/BudayLilla

The government restricted data protection rights as stipulated by the GDPR and the Act on Freedom of information on May 4.

It imposed a state of emergency on 11 March and extended it indefinitely on March 31.

Under the state of emergency, the government has the authority to govern through decrees, while parliament is suspended.

The latest changes come after several international reports highlighted serious declines in the quality of Hungarian democracy and press freedom.

The Nations in Transit report, issued in May by the watchdog organisation Freedom House, notably ranked Hungary as the only non-democracy in the whole of the EU.

“Hungary’s decline has been the most precipitous ever tracked in Nations in Transit; it was one of the three democratic frontrunners as of 2005, but in 2020 it became the first country to descend by two regime categories and leave the group of democracies entirely,” the report said.

The Press Freedom Index released by the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders ranked Hungary in the lowest place for press freedom in the EU.

It said access to information was becoming ever more difficult for independent journalists, who are now banned from freely putting questions to politicians or from attending many events.

Now, not only do Hungarian institutions have 90 days instead of 30 to answer an FOI request, – triple the previous length – but requests related to privacy will remain unanswered until the state of emergency is lifted.

This may mean journalists waiting three months to get access to vital information. And, with so many things happening fast during the state of emergency, the risk is that the information will become irrelevant or outdated.

The government justified the much longer deadline to answer FOI requests by claiming that keeping to the 15-day deadline could “endanger the fulfilment of the [relevant institution’s] public tasks in relation to the emergency”, so the decree says.

When it comes to the suspended GDPR articles, they include: the right of access by the data subject; the right to erasure (the “right to be forgotten”); the right to restriction of processing; for information to be provided when personal data are collected from the data subject, or information to be provided when personal data have not been obtained from the data subject.

Important information on the way the authorities obtain personal data, its purpose, and how it is processed, protected, or shared with other authorities, will now only become available when the state of emergency ends.

The authorities insist concern about these changes is needless. In response to a query from BIRN, Attila Peterfalvi, chair of the National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, said the decree applies only to requests for data in relation to the battle against the coronavirus, and that the data controller will also have to prove why they wish to apply the special regulation.

Peterfalvi noted also that GDPR gives participating states the right to restrict its provisions. The decree doesn’t actually take away any rights, or the right to remedy, but only delays their execution until the end of the state of emergency, he stressed.

Officials also point out that they will lift the state of emergency when it is no longer needed.

But opposition politicians and rights groups are not persuaded. They recall that the “crisis” measures imposed to stop illegal migration in 2015 were prolonged again and again – and still remain effective – long after the number of migrants attempting to cross Hungary decreased drastically.

Worryingly broad legislation

Illustration. Photo : EPA-EFE/Zoltan Balogh

The 30-day GDPR deadline to answer COVID-19-related data subject requests will resume once the state of emergency ends. This means that, until then, if someone submits a request related to COVID-19, or lodges an objection against the processing of his personal data related to COVID-19, the data controller is not required to take any steps to erase the data, rectify the data, or restrict its processing.

Furthermore, the legislation does not define the exact categories of personal data or the type of data controllers that fall under it.

As a result, any data controller taking part in the fight against COVID-19, or processing COVID-19-related personal data, can interpret the new legal provisions widely and broaden its restrictions to apply to as much personal data as possible.

Ádam Remport, data protection expert at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, an NGO, told BIRN that he believes the decree suspends fundamental rights, which the GDPR does not allow for.

The wording of the decree is too general and its reasoning too weak, he adds.

Remport said the GDPR is very strict about when member countries can suspend its application.

He notes that the GDPR says a restriction may only be imposed if it “respects the essence of the fundamental rights and freedoms”, and if this restriction “is a necessary and proportionate measure in a democratic society”.

Remport says the total suspension of certain rights does not fit into this category. He adds that while the decree indicates the purpose of the legislation, all the other reasoning is missing.

“The decree should list explicitly to which data and data controller it applies. It should at least justify why there is no such list,” he said.

In its current form, he added, the decree is too wide-ranging and can be applied to anything, from healthcare to the economy.

The GDPR also demands the right to an effective remedy, a right which cannot be suspended, he said. “According to the European Convention on Human Rights, and the GDPR, a remedy is real if it provides an effective judicial remedy.

“The wording of the decree doesn’t contradict this directly, as in theory one can still appeal. But until the state of emergency ends, nobody can go to court,” he pointed out.

“Nobody knows when the emergency will end, so we can’t call this an effective remedy; it is not a real remedy,” he concluded.

FOI rights undermined for years

Illustration. Photo: Pxfuel

As state communication become more centralized in Hungary – and effectively censored during the COVID-19 emergency, according to one NGO report, FOI requests have become ever more important as tools for journalists to extract relevant information about state operations.

Miklos Ligeti, legal director of Transparency International Hungary, told BIRN that the government in Budapest has been undermining this right for years.

“The Hungarian government has continuously restricted access to public data since 2013. From this point of view, the new decree is not a novelty,” he said.

The only guaranteed way to gain access to public data was via the courts, Ligeti added. “Now the time one has to wait before going to court has been prolonged,” he continued.

According to Transparency International, the decree goes against the constitution, as the right to freedom of information it refers to implies fast and timely access – while waiting months for an answer is anything but.

Since 2013, according to the government, FOI requests can be rejected if they are too “comprehensive”, as over-detailed questions are deemed a “misuse” of FIOA rights.

To decide what question is too detailed is, again, up to the data owner. The next restriction, which followed in 2015, allowed data owners to bill the information requester for “reimbursement of expenses”, if replying to the request involves “a disproportionate amount of work” for the relevant institution.

Tamas Bodoky, founder and editor-in-chief of Átlátszó, an investigative portal, told BIRN that the new moves were yet another attempt to restrict the FOI law.

“This is the third time the Orbán government is restricting FOI. This tendency, and the suspension of the GDPR Articles are the real concern – not that we might have to wait longer to get information,” Bodoky said.

Bodoky notes that if institutions demand reimbursement for work, “it is usually around 5,000 to -20,000 forints [14 to 60 euros]. To pay this money is not a problem for a lawyer or an editorial. But the intention behind this is to prevent citizens from using this tool to control power”.

His investigative portal has developed a tool through which users can send FOI requests to any public body.

According to him, data owners rarely demand “unreasonable” sums of money for reimbursement. If they do, or the info request is denied, “one can go to court. But that takes time and costs money, and people cannot afford it”.

Fortunately, he adds, judges usually favour making data public. But sometimes, despite a court judgment, data owners still withhold the data. “In that case, we remain without means, as public prosecutors will do nothing to enforce the verdict,” Bodoky warned.

Átlátszó uses FOI requests a lot for its investigations, and has faced various other methods by which state institutions hide information.

“Once the cabinet office of the Prime Minister sent us documents that were photocopied so many times – or maybe digitally blurred – that they were barely readable,” Bodoky recalled. “This shows clearly what the Hungarian government thinks about freedom of information,” he adds.

Miklós Ligeti says the broad implications of the latest moves are more concerning than their exact detail.

“If we look at the big picture, we see that the lack of reliable data makes rational public conversation impossible,” he warned. “Once there is no information, citizens cannot make responsible political decisions,” he concluded.

Erdogan’s Turkey Targets Remaining Media Critics

Posted on May 13, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Already one of the biggest jailers of journalists in the world, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now turning the screws on the handful of independent media outlets left as the government seeks to silence criticism of its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, media watchdogs and experts say.

Since a failed coup in mid-2016, authorities under Erdogan have closed 70 newspapers, 20 magazines, 34 radio stations and 33 television channels, accusing them of ties to ‘terrorism’ and the man they allege masterminded the abortive putsch, US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

A handful of independent outlets remain, but they too now face fresh pressure over their coverage of Turkey’s efforts to tackle the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus and its impact on the country’s already shaky economy.

The state broadcasting regulator, Radio and Television Supreme Council, RTUK, recently fined several TV channels over their coverage of the government’s COVID-19 strategy, including FOX TV, broadcaster of Turkey’s most watched television news show anchored by Fatih Portakal.

On April 7, the regulator banned Portakal’s show for three days, accusing him of bias.

If FOX TV is fined once more for the same reason, it risks losing its licence. The broadcaster has appealed the decision but there has been no official response.

Erdogan has also weighed in personally, suing Portakal for spreading lies and manipulating the public. The anchor faces a potential prison sentence of three years.

“Some media and politicians are more dangerous than the virus,” Erdogan said on April 13. “They attack and criticise the government instead of supporting it in these difficult days, but our country will get rid of media and political viruses very soon.”

Critics of the government say it fears for its political future after losing a number of key Turkish cities to the opposition in local elections last year, with the economic crisis worsening since the onset of the pandemic.

Gokhan Durmus, General Secretary of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, TGS, said the saga over Portakal and FOX was symptomatic of the government’s treatment of the press.

“The pressure and investigations against the media increased during the pandemic,” Durmus told BIRN. “In particular, media institutions and journalists who question or criticise government measures face a serious threat from the government via fines, legal investigations and blackmail.”

Government fears for its future – expert

A Turkish policeman with face mask blocks the main road during curfew in Istanbul, Turkey, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/TOLGA BOZOGLU

With some 139,000 confirmed cases and 3,786 deaths as of May 11, Turkey has been hit hard by the pandemic, piling pressure on a government already struggling on the economic and political front.

Media watchdog Reporters without Borders ranks Turkey 154th out of 180 countries in terms of media freedom, characterising the country as “not free” on its Press Freedom Index.

According to this year’s Turkish Press Freedom Report, published on May 3, 85 journalists are in Turkish prisons and 103 journalists arrested and awaiting trial.

The report says that, between April 2019 and April 2020, RTUK applied administrative sanctions against television broadcasters in 20 cases and halted the broadcasting of 16 channels.

It also said that over 80 per cent of Turkish journalists believe they suffer from censorship and more than 78 per cent say they self-censor.

Mehmet Onur Cevik, an expert on Turkish media and politics at the University of Ghent in Belgium, said Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, already control 90 per cent of the media in Turkey.

“However,” he said, “the government left a small floor to a certain degree of independent and critical media as well as opposition parties.”

The AKP uses the existence of a small number of independent media outlets, as well as democratic elections, “to prove its political legitimacy against accusations of being authoritarian and oppressing its critics,” Cevik said.

“However, now things have changed because the economic crisis has deepened following the COVID-19 pandemic and people speak more about the government’s wrongdoings.”

The ruling party has gone on the offensive, he told BIRN, “since for the first time they fear for their political future. They fear that even news about the worsening economy can trigger a tsunami.”

Intolerance of criticism

A group of workers disinfect the Turkish Parliament General Assembly to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in Ankara, Turkey, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/STR

RTUK and Turkey’s Press Ad Agency, BIK, which controls state advertising spending, are state institutions originally established to protect journalists, regulate their work and make sure media across the board are on a secure financial footing.

“However, in the last two years, these institutions started to do what the government wants and they turned into the government’s hammer,” said Durmus.

“Journalists face continuous legal investigations and the penalties from Turkish state institutions such as RTUK and intensified in recent years. Just during the pandemic, 13 journalists have been detained because of their coverage.”

“The government does not want to hear anything that differs from its own opinion,” said Durmus. “With these recent penalties and continuous pressure, the government indirectly told journalists that they will be fined if they say anything critical about the government’s policies.”

After years of economic crisis, the government has been caught short on firepower to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and is trading political blows with opposition-run cities.

In what critics say is a blatant bid to control the narrative, the government announced new legislation on May 7 concerning ‘manipulation’ of financial markets and targeting allegedly “deceptive” news about the economy.

It has also tabled to parliament a new law on digital rights, to the alarm of rights groups which say it will increase government control over social media platforms and potentially force some to quit the country.

“The AKP had never been so uncomfortable with independent media, social media and the opposition, because it feels that its rule is being threatened,” said Cevik.

“So they target the media, opposition and whoever thinks differently, even at the cost of losing legitimacy.”

Pandemic Measures Further Restrict Turkey’s Beleaguered Civil Society

Posted on May 11, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Already under unprecedented pressure since a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, civil society groups in Turkey say their ability to draw attention to human rights violations has been further curtailed by government restrictions on public gatherings and events to tackle the spread of COVID-19.

Four days after registering its first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus, on March 15 Turkey banned all public events and subsequently halted all travel between the country’s major cities and imposed movement restrictions on those under the age of 20 or over the age of 65.

Non-governmental organisations, like much of the rest of society, have moved almost all activity online; while some organisations say this has resulted in an increase in output, most say restrictions on travel and scrutiny of state institutions have hurt their work.

With almost 40 branches across the country, Human Rights Association, IHD, general secretary Osman Isci told BIRN: “We had to cancel all our events, inter-city travel and press conference, which were crucial for our work and for spreading awareness about human rights violations across the country.”

“There has been a significant decrease in reports on human rights violations because of the restrictions,” he said.

Civil society sidelined

Third anniversary of the failed coup attempt at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/ERDEM SAHIN

Enes Ozkan, the editor-in-chief of Daktilo84, a non-governmental academic platform bringing together academics and experts, said the restrictions had increased output.

“Now, everyone has to stay home and this made everyone more accessible,” he said. “We started to increase our webinars, writings and other online events because of the increasing demand as well as accessibility of our members,” Ozkan told BIRN.

Already working largely online, Daktilo84 was less affected, he said, “but organisations that focus on psychical events suffer the most.”

Social Democracy Foundation, SODEV, for example, said staff members were now working from home and board meetings were held online. All regular events and conferences were cancelled, said director Murat Uner.

“We can continue our work somehow but we hope that this situation will end soon,” he said.

Uner said SODEV had received notice from the Turkish Interior Ministry that even all online events had been banned as part of the government’s measures against the pandemic. Uproar among civil society groups forced a U-turn, with the government saying it the order had been the result of a mistake.

Isci of IHD said it was indicative of the government’s approach to civil society, particularly since Erdogan put down a coup in 2016 that he blamed on U.S.-based cleric and former ally Fethullah Gulen. Gulen denied any involvement, but the government nevertheless launched a crackdown on his followers as well as large parts of the public sector, security forces, media and civil society.

“When any extraordinary situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic occurs, civil society organisations become more vulnerable and fragile because of security-oriented policies,” Isci told BIRN.

“In order to overcome the difficulties which civil society organisations face the government should respect the requirements of civil society,” he said.

Isci complained that the government had made no effort to involve civil society groups in the fight against the coronavirus.

Like other “authoritarian governments”, he said, Turkey’s has pursued legislation that creates “a suitable atmosphere to close the space for civil society movement,” for example by restricting access to parliament and prisons and excluding medical unions from crisis-management efforts.

Post-putsch crackdown

A man with a face mask in Istanbul, Turkey, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/TOLGA BOZOGLU

Since the failed coup, 1,767 associations, foundations and labour unions have been closed down by the government and hundreds of others had to cease activities citing government pressure.

Ozkan said civil society groups in Turkey were seriously dwindling in number.

“Most of the remaining civil society organisations are embedded to the state or they are countrymen associations which are simply nothing more than meeting points for people living in large cities who are from same village or town,” he said.

“If you are critical, very vocal and influential, the government wants to control and to shape you via audits and fines,” Ozkan told BIRN. “If you have funding from abroad the situation becomes worse.”

Isci said the government had framed much of political life in terms of security, creating a deeply polarised “us and them” atmosphere. “You face certain problems if you are critical,” he said. “This is why we see that so many civil society organisations have been closed down.”

Security placed above freedom

Illustration. Photo: EPA-EFE/CLEMENS BILAN

With the COVID-19 pandemic, Ozkan compared the response of the Turkish government to that of Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Donald Trump’s US administration and Poland under the Law and Justice Party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Freedom becomes subordinated to security, he said.

“Authoritarian regimes use everything to become more authoritarian; they try to use everything for their favour and the coronavirus crisis is a perfect example of that,” he said. “Autocrats use the pandemic to maximise their power.”

“There should be a balance between security and freedoms. However, everyone now focuses on staying home safe and fulfilling their main needs. When freedoms come in second place, this provides more space for authoritarian regimes.”

On April 13, before parliament voted a new package of laws including greater government control over media, civil society, academia and social media, Erdogan declared, “Some media and politicians are more dangerous than the virus. They attack and criticise the government instead of supporting it in these hard days, but our country will get rid of media and political viruses very soon.”

The law on social media, which would further restrict digital rights, was eventually postponed to make way for COVID-19-related legislation.

Ozkan said such laws were made possible by a situation in which people are ready to trade away rights and freedoms for greater safety.

“And civil society organisations are excluded from all the process,” he said. “What we say is not heard, we are not involved in decision-making processes and the government never listens us.”

Contact Tracing: Europe’s Coronavirus Tech Tangle

Posted on May 4, 2020January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

As countries across Europe gingerly ease restrictions imposed to fight the spread of COVID-19, governments are looking for tech-based solutions to avoid a resurgence in infections.

Experts agree that one of the most effective ways to do this is to introduce some kind of social-tracing system to let people know if they have come into contact with anyone later reported infected. Once alerted, they can self-isolate before further spreading the virus.

European countries are at different stages in developing COVID-19 social-tracing apps that governments can encourage — not require — people to install on their smartphones.

Since privacy watchdogs have decried the use of location data, most nations have chosen Bluetooth-based technology as the best way of registering potential contact with those who have been infected.

While most states in Western and Southern Europe are still tinkering with the technology, some countries in Central Europe have had tech-based solutions for social tracing up and running for weeks. The Czech Republic and Poland are leading the way.

Playing their own game

An Apple iPhone running a test version of the ‘Next Step’ smart phone app using Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-3T) to trace COVID-19 infections, in Darmstadt, Germany, 26 April 2020. Germany has changed its course in the debate over a coronavirus tracing app, favoring decentralised data storage over a centrally managed server. Photo: EPA-EFE/BEN WENZ

In Poland, people returning from abroad are required to stay at home for two weeks of quarantine. The government asks them to download an app to verify they are complying with the rules. At random times, users are requested to take selfies and upload them to prove they have not left the house.

The Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs is also grappling with a Bluetooth-based social-tracing app intended for wider use.

“We’re still working on the application,” Joanna Debek, a communications officer at the ministry, said in a phone interview. “It will be released very soon,”

But it is the Czech Republic that leads the pack when it comes to “fast-track” COVID-19 measures.

The country was one of the first EU member states to declare a state of emergency, on March 12. And only a week later, it became the first EU country to make it mandatory for everyone to wear face masks in public.

The Czech tech sector was also quick to act. In mid-March, the country’s largest search engine, Seznam, introduced a coronavirus tracing feature on its geolocation app, Maps.cz. With a user’s permission, it draws on location data to inform people if they have crossed paths with anyone who has tested positive.

A month later, the Czech Health Ministry released a Bluetooth-based social tracing app known as eRouska (eMask). The app anonymously detects pairings among different devices on which the app has been installed. Similar technology is now being developed all across Europe.

The app is integrated into a more complex solution called the Smart Quarantine, which combines data from cell phones and payment cards. With a user’s permission, local hygiene stations can use this data to isolate individuals who have come into contact with infected people.

Jan Kulveit, a senior researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, is one of the two main strategists for the system developed by Covid19.cz, a group of Czech tech companies and IT enthusiasts working on tech-based solutions out of the current crisis. He said developing an app is the easy part.

“The tricky part is to ensure that these technical solutions are somehow integrated into a system that local hygiene stations can obtain information from, and then act upon,” he said in a phone interview.

“In this sense, the Czech Republic is a few weeks ahead of Germany and most other European countries. We’re actually currently in contact with several countries who expressed their interest in our model.”

Coders without borders

A man uses a Swedish version of the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker app on his smartphone in Stockholm, Sweden, 29 April 2020. Lund University developed the application to provide information about the spread of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 in Sweden. Photo: EPA-EFE/Fredrik Sandberg

A key question is how to turn a patchwork of national systems into something that is “interoperable across the EU so that citizens are protected even when they cross borders”, as the European Commission said in a recent news release.

One initiative that sprang up to address the problem is Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT).

Headed by Hans-Christian Boos, a Swiss tech entrepreneur who sits on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s digital expert council, PEPP-PT is an attempt to create a European-wide solution to the “coronavirus tracing problem”.

“We’re now in contact with 40 countries worldwide,” Boos told BIRN in a phone interview. “We started as a European project, but maybe we’ll have to rename it now; there are countries from all around the world contacting us.”

We started as a European project, but maybe we’ll have to rename it now; there are countries from all around the world contacting us.

– Hans-Christian Boos, tech entrepreneur

Boos and his team of scientists from across Europe have been developing a set of standards, mechanisms and technologies that could serve as a backbone for various interoperable apps.

Many Western and Southern European governments including France, Belgium, Italy and Spain have pledged to develop their national apps using the standards put together by PEPP-PT, Boos told a news conference last month.

But no Central or Eastern European country has publicly expressed interest in the initiative.

“I know that there are countries among those 40 from Eastern Europe,” Boos told BIRN. “They’re interested. I mean why shouldn’t they be?”

However, since BIRN’s interview with Boos in mid-April, PEPP-PT has had a downhill ride.

On April 19, more than 300 scientists and researchers published an open letter urging governments not to introduce systems that could “allow unprecedented surveillance on society at large.”

Although the open letter does not name any specific initiative, the criticism is widely seen as directed at the PEPP-PT social-tracing approach, until then favoured by key EU member states Germany and France.

Many researchers say the PEPP-PT strategy is too centralised and vulnerable to governmental “mission creep”. This is due to the fact that, under this scheme, user data would be stored on a central server.

Since the open letter was published, a growing number of researchers have called for the use of a decentralised contact-tracing protocol called DP-3T, developed by Swiss researchers in collaboration with a technology partnership between Apple and Google.

This has prompted several countries to ditch PEPP-PT for DP-3T. Switzerland, Austria and Estonia are backing the decentralised approach, according to Reuters.

But the biggest blow for Boos and his team came on April 24 when Germany announced it would also adopt a “decentralised” approach, leaving France and Britain alone in the “centralisation” camp.

Officially, the Czech Health Ministry has left the door open for cooperation with PEPP-PT.

“We’d like to work with them in the future on standardisation and interoperability of different national solutions,” a ministry spokesperson said in an email.

But Kulveit from the Future of Humanity Institute expressed skepticism about the pan-European PEPP-PT solution.

“I think that, in the end, the interoperability of all the individual European apps will be based on the Google-Apple solution,” he said.

“In any case, countries shouldn’t be just waiting for one, pan-European solution before developing their own domestic social-tracing apps. You can always just update the protocol later to make them [the apps] talk to each other.”

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