The creators of the Luca app are reacting to the speculation about a possible end of the system by changing their business model: In the future, the health authorities should be able to flexibly terminate the contracts with Nexenio, the IT company behind Luca, and only pay about half the fees numbers.

At the same time, Nexenio wants to use the existing infrastructure - according to their information, the Luca app has been installed on around 40 million cell phones to date - to offer further digitization services in the catering trade.

In an interview with the FAZ, the head of Nexenio, Patrick Hennig, cited a payment solution integrated into the app as an example. 

Sarah Obertreis

Editor in Business.

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The contracts between the Luca makers and the federal states or the individual health authorities have previously had a term of one year. They are now gradually being phased out. Schleswig-Holstein and Bremen have already announced that they do not want to extend the contract. Schleswig-Holstein justified the decision by saying that contact tracing for organizers and restaurateurs has not been mandatory since autumn.

Hennig argues that Luca offers great added value even in times when the health authorities no longer have the capacity to track individual infections due to high incidences. For a few months now, health authorities have also been able to use the app to send automated warnings to user groups. Unlike the federal corona warning app, these instructions show where and at what time the risky contact took place. In some federal states, the health authorities say that Luca is still of little use to them. In Bremen, the health senator said that the authorities had only "little" requested the Luca data from the catering and event industry, "so the system has not proven itself for us."

There had always been rumors as to whether the Luca makers would continue to develop their system to keep it marketable even after the pandemic.

Hennig now says it is important that successful digitization tools are also developed in Germany.

In the case of Luca, there is now an infrastructure that should be used: "We have a unique opportunity in Germany right now."