The Germany-based Robert Koch-Institute has made its tracing app available for other European countries in the international app store.
Luxembourg has been included in the first phase. 13 million people had downloaded the coronavirus tracing app by Thursday morning.
The app, which was released in Germany a week ago, measures the distance between smartphones belonging to app users.
If two smartphones with the app spend more than 15 minutes close together, within the two metre distance, both phones will store this contact in the form of an anonymous, randomly generated ID. If one of the users tests positive for the virus and logs this in the app, the app will notify the other user.
The app uses Bluetooth to function and does not collect any personal data. It has also been released in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, Czechia, Poland, Denmark, Romania and Bulgaria.
The Robert Koch Institute published an explanation for this in its FAQs, saying they had to check whether the app would be allowed in these countries in according with data protection laws.
The institute is currently checking whether the app can be released in other countries on a case by case basis.
