Coronavirus, Phase 2 is approaching and everyone is looking at the gradual reopening of activities from May 4 (and for some perhaps even earlier). Among the many changes to come, there is also the use of Movement tracking app of Italians in the transition to certain treatments and the anti-Covid-19 vaccine: the government will rely on the App "immune”, the application chosen by Commissioner Domenico Arcuri who, at the end of last week, signed the ordinance to develop it. According to forecasts, it will be possible to download it, on a voluntary basis, from the beginning of May.
The tender for the selection collected 319 proposals but in the end the winner was the one conceived by the Milanese Bending Spoons, a software house founded by the four young Italian engineers Francesco Patarnello, Luca Ferrari, Luca Querella and Matteo Danieli and by the Polish designer Tomasz Greber. The company, born in 2013 in Denmark, which today has 117 employees with an average age of 29, has already earned the title of "living room" of the Apps for high-ranking members to which it has opened its doors in Italy. It is they, together with the Santagostino medical center, the Lombard network of multi-specialist clinics run by Luca Foresti and Jakala, the e-marketing company founded by François de Brabant who have presented the most convincing project. On Immuni Copasir wants to "deepen" the exam – the Parliamentary National Security Control Commission – which, according to its president, wants to summon Arcuri to report in the next few days.
But how will it work immune, who are its shareholders, what are the advantages and possible risks it will bring with it?
HOW IMMUNE WORKS
Like any other App, immune it will be downloaded from the Apple Store or Google Play depending on the operating system (iOs or Android) adopted by your smartphone. It will serve two purposes: keep track of a personal clinical diary that stores data about your health, without any data leaving the device; trace your contacts with other people who have also downloaded the App. Tracking is based on Bluetooth technology which allows the smartphone to recognize other mobile phones. This is the function that impacts privacy but with the necessary barriers: those who test positive for the virus will be consulted by the doctor on the possibility of unlocking, voluntarily and thanks to a code, the list of (anonymous) contacts they have encountered. The latter will be sent a notification to communicate that they are at risk of contagion, they must quarantine or swab. None of the collected data will be disclosed before the patient has decided to give consent to their use.
One aspect that should not be underestimated is the acceptance of the new tool: in order for it to be effective, in fact, it will have to be adopted by at least 60% of Italians but the Lombardy Region, for example, has already sent an SMS to residents with the request to download a other App, regional. Furthermore, 20% of Italians - the older ones - do not have a smartphone as well as children.
PRIVACY AND TRACEABILITYÀ
It is evident that the data collected through the applications are sensitive and have a high economic value. Immuni is therefore granted in license for use open, free of charge, to the State who will have to decide on data management: whether the positives and the anonymized list of their contacts should be entrusted to a central server or if instead the information, however encrypted, is left on the smartphone. Another question to decide is whether we will limit ourselves to using Bluetooth or whether we want to integrate it - perhaps at a later time - with GPS geolocation as was done in South Korea, a much more invasive technology.
These are questions that other European governments are also asking themselves within guidelines provided by the EU which prefers the exchange of Apps on European territory and considers voluntariness an essential requirement. Immuni will also be able to contribute to contact tracing in France, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Germany.
Like Italy, Germany, which will reopen schools from 4 May and managed to get out of the emergency before us, is working on a tracking app. "He will use bluetooth and not GPS" Health Minister Jens Spahn has already clarified, specifying that it will still take 3-4 weeks to develop it. In France, the government is working to launch the App StopCovid with the end of social confinement but it will not be ready, announced the undersecretary for Digital, Cédric O, for the parliamentary debate on 28 April.
Although all the implications are to be carefully evaluated, it is useful to keep this observation in mind Luca Foresti, CEO of the Santagostino Medical Center, in an interview with Corriere della Sera: “We continually decide to give our data to private companies that provide us with services and send us advertising: Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft use them to create value for themselves. (...) Anyone can assess the risk to privacy against that to health, considering that the Immuni App does not ask for name, surname or telephone number and has a technology designed with data protection experts to avoid abuses ".
IMMUNI AND BENDING SPOONS: WHO ARE SHAREHOLDERS AND PARTNERS
Bending Spoons, as we said, is a Milanese software house: born in 2013 in Denmark, moved as a Spa to Italy in 2015 with capital divided among 48 shareholders of various nationalities, it exploded in 2018. The turnover has gone from 4,7 million in 2016 and a profit of 1,6 million in reserves, to 6,8 million in 2017 (1,5 million profit) and 31,9 million in 2018 (3 million profit).
Its name is innovative like the rest of the team: Bending Spoons (BS) stands for "spoons that bend" and recalls a famous scene from the Matrix in which we see a child who can bend a spoon with his mind.
In a short time, the guys from BS have climbed to the top of the European software factories and on 4 July they announced the entry into their capital of H14 (of the three sons of Veronica Lario and Silvio Berlusconi, Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi who is also a shareholder of Fininvest), New Capital (Hong Kong Pao/Cheng family investment holding company) e StarTip (vehicle of Tamburi Investments Partners SpA). All together, in total, they bought 5,7% of the company. But Bending Spoons will be joined as well as by Santa Augustin Medical Center also Jakala in which the three Berlusconi boys are once again present, but also the Ardian fund, Mediobanca and entrepreneurs such as Renzo Rosso, Paolo Marzotto and Giuliana Benetton. On the other hand, Bending Spoons is a small but highly successful company: in just a few years it has produced around 12 Apps and obtained 294 million downloads at an average of 200.000 a day. The 2019 turnover is given in further growth driven by creative energy. It could not fail to attract the attention of investors.
