The ‘Radar COVID-19’ app is no more two years after the pandemic started

The “Radar COVID-19” app once considered key to managing the spread of the virus, is no more.

According to the government as covered by elperiodico on Monday, October 10 the app has been withdrawn following the reduction and severity in infection rates.

Although the app was downloaded more than 8.6 million times by Apple and Android users, it only detected 124,555 infections. That is an insignificant number when compared to the overall number of people who did test positive, 13,441,941.

The app cost €4.2 million in total including €1.7 million for the maintenance, support and ongoing development of the app. The amount also includes €2.1 million spent on raising awareness and promoting the apps use.

The app has proven effective according to the government despite the low number of notifications, a sharp contrast with the UK where their app grossly over-notified. The government also were at pains to say that the privacy of users had been protected in accordance with all the recommendations prepared by the European Commission in this regard.

The Spanish Agency for Data Protection (AEPD) issued sanctions against the government for violating eight articles of the General Data Protection Regulation. However, no know data breaches occurred.

The ‘Radar COVID-19’ app was only downloaded by a little over 20 per cent of the population and as such proved less effective than it could have been, particularly towards the end of the pandemic with few people making use of the app to record their status.

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