Even when it comes to tracking and alerting of potential exposure to COVID-19, there will be an app for that.
You’ll soon be able to download a Bluetooth-enabled exposure notification app, dubbed COVID Alert, that will warn you when you may have been exposed to the virus.
The “privacy-first” app that is being developed in Ontario is a component of the province’s strategy to manage the spread of COVID-19 as regions reopen by ensuring that all new cases and their close contacts are identified early, contacted quickly, investigated thoroughly and are followed up daily for up to 14 days, Deputy Premier, Health Minister and Newmarket-Aurora MPP Christine Elliott told NewmarketToday.
Ontario is partnering with the federal government to launch COVID Alert, which was developed by the Ontario Digital Service (ODS) and volunteers from Shopify.
The new app was initially expected to launch July 2, but has been delayed with no new date confirmed.
The app will be available for download on iPhones with iOS 5.0 or later and for Android phones running Android 6.0 or later.
Ontario residents will be the first to use the COVID Alert app, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said it should be ready for downloading in the rest of the country later this summer, as a potential second wave of infections looms in the fall.
The province is looking closely at the experience in Alberta, which launched its own app last spring, Ontario chief medical officer Dr. David Williams said. Only about 11 per cent of the population there has downloaded the ABTraceTogether app.
Similar technology is also in use in other countries, including Germany and Japan.
Use of the app will be voluntary, and will notify users if they were within two metres of a person who tests positive for the virus in the last 14 days and if that contact took place over an extended period of time, Elliott said.
"We have received early indications from a number of groups, including large employers, that they are interested in having access to maintain the health of their employees. We are very hopeful it will be well taken up,” Elliott said.
The app doesn't store or share any personal or medical information or GPS-location data, but uses randomly generated, anonymous codes and Bluetooth signals between phones that also have the app downloaded to keep track of the proximity and duration of a certain contact.
A user will receive a notification on his or her smartphone screen if there has been prolonged, close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 and also uses the app. It then provides public health advice and what steps anyone who has been exposed can take.
To protect privacy, the app alerts will not tell users the time or date they may have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, just that a contact took place sometime in the previous two weeks.
To help ensure the privacy and security of the app, the province engaged BlackBerry volunteers to audit it, in addition to the province's own security reviews.
When the mobile app was announced last month as part of the province’s wider contact tracing strategy, Premier Doug Ford said it will act “like a protective shield around us, to a certain degree”.
"We need people to download this app — it’s going to protect us, it’s going to protect our families," he said.
