The official flag of the European Union is wrongly depicted in the CovidSafeBE app, as the 12 stars are upside down.
The error crept into the app by mistake and nobody – not even European officials – noticed, until it was recently spotted by a listener of the Flemish 'Nieuwe feiten' (New Facts) radio programme, according to Gert De Gelder of Digital Flanders, the government department that developed the app.
"We are going to rectify that," De Gelder told the same radio programme on Tuesday morning.
"The vaccinations of European officials were all done in Brussels by Belgium, so all European officials also use that app, even the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen," he added. "We even received compliments from Europe for the design of our app."
Credit: The Brussels Times
The fact that the stars are pointing down instead of up has no impact whatsoever on the validity or operation of the app. "The stars do not have to be scanned, it is the QR code that has to be scanned," De Gelder stressed, adding that the app has not been hacked either.
The developers will soon correct the error and have for some time now been working on a new version of the app that will be released on 18 October.
"It will include a number of changes, such as a video for under-18s on how to download their own certificates into the app. You will also be able to fill in the Passenger Locator Form (PLF) from within the app when you are abroad for more than 48 hours," De Gelder explained.
"We thought these would be the most important changes when we updated the app, but that honour will now go to fixing the stars," he concluded jokingly.
