Self Help Apps

The ideal travel companion for vacations in the EU, Iceland and Norway. It helps travelers in Europe to cope with stressful situations abroad and to assert their consumer rights in the language of the destination country.

With the ECC-Net: Travel app, the European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net) provides consumers with legal information, practical support and language assistance for 101 typical situations in a single application.

It may happen that the specific situation of the traveler is not covered or not fully covered by this app. In such a case, however, the consumer still has the option of having the facts checked by his or her European Consumer Center after returning home.
The travel app is a joint project of all 30 members of ECC-Net and was developed by the European Consumer Centre Germany.

Important: This concerns flights within the EU or flights where the operating airline has its headquarters in the EU!

The Flight Calculator is a joint tool of our ECC colleagues from Norway and the local consumer protection authority. 

The contents are not the responsibility of the ECC Austria. The tool does not correspond to an individual legal check.

Users of the app learn whether the airport is open at their destination, whether public transportation is running, in which situations face masks are required, or how many people they are allowed to meet there. An interactive map shows the classifications of all countries according to the colors of the Corona traffic light. In addition, one can find all the information about whether, for example, restaurants or cafes are open or from which countries and under what conditions one can enter at all.

Helps consumers learn about their rights by interactively asking/entering general questions about the case. Although the app addresses questions to customers residing in Germany, the information is the same and applicable to customers in the EU, even if you do not live in Germany.

After the step-by-step input of some travel data, for example whether one drives only adults or children or pets along, and after the selection of the vehicle type one can add also up to 5 countries of the route. According to this selection, users get a pre-selection of individually retrievable information about this country structured in areas such as theft, documents, ferry / customs / toll, rental car, breakdown / accident, repair, safety, refueling / charging station, environmental zone, insurance, and traffic rules.

Note: You can also use the online tool comfortably on the browser of the smartphone, the layout has been optimized for portable devices.

The app is aimed at young people with plans to spend some time abroad. It provides information and contacts for 15 popular travel countries in the EU. For example, you can find out what to do in an emergency or if you have problems at the airport, what to think about when it comes to health, money or cell phones, and what special rules apply in the country.

Thanks to an extensive expansion, the app now also helps you with longer stays abroad such as studies, student exchanges, au pairs or work & travel. It includes additional information on job hunting, registration requirements, rental contracts, insurance, bank accounts and much more. On top of that, there are tips on how to save money. A checklist helps to think of all the important things. There are also some entertaining features.

The Austrian Ministry of the Environment, the VKI and the environmental NGO Global2000 participated in the European Union (EU) funded project "LIFE AskREACH" and thus also supported the development of the smartphone app Scan4Chem. REACH pays special attention to about 200 substances of very high concern (SVHC) .  The app enables consumers to send a request to responsible manufacturers or distributors through the barcode of the product, whether and which SVHC substances are contained in the product. As are result the number of declared articles is constantly growing.

The most important functions of Watchlist Internet are available in the app:

1. Warnings about current fraud traps on the Internet can be called up on the smartphone, using articles, search terms or lists of fraudulent domains.
2. Push notifications are optional to display the latest warning message as soon as it goes online.
3. An input form can be used to draw attention to fraud traps on the Internet and suggest a check.

The app is designed for the following four functional areas:

1. Registering a trip abroad - so that in an emergency (e.g. in the event of a corona pandemic) you can be informed for return actions by the Foreign Ministry or contacted by the local embassy.
2. Country information on 200 countries: Information, data, facts & entry requirements
3. Emergency tips in case of loss of documents, accident, illness, etc.
4. Contacts to all embassies and consulates in the destination country with route indication