A new state website for registering for COVID tests in Austria is causing displeasure in the country right from the start. First, on the opening day Wednesday, users were puzzled to see that the website oesterreich-testet.at is only in German, runs on Amazon infrastructure, and does not contain a warning despite Google cookies. Then it turned out that the website had a data leak.
After an initial denial, the operating company World Direct admitted on Thursday that “in around 800 cases personal data was incorrectly displayed to third parties”. What is meant is that correct data was mistakenly shown to third parties. World Direct is a subsidiary of the mostly Mexican telecom group A1 based in Vienna. The company took that Website oesterreich-testet.at meanwhile offline and claims to have closed the security gap.
Second disgrace in a week
In response to specific inquiries from citizens as to whether they were among the approximately 800 affected, only a reference to general questions about the planned coronavirus mass tests should have been returned. Meanwhile, numerous users in social networks are reporting various technical problems with the website. It is also denounced that it is not intended to be able to cancel agreed test dates.
The inadequacies around oesterreich-testet.at are the second online disgrace for the Austrian federal government. “Kaufhaus Österreich”, which went online on Monday and was supposed to be an alternative portal to Amazon, was also greeted with ridicule and criticism.
(ds)
.
