OTTAWA – Canadians can now start downloading a voluntary smartphone app to warn users that they have been close to those who test positive for COVID-19.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he downloaded the “COVID Alert” app this morning and says that the more people contact to use it, the older it will be to insinuate, and slow down, the spread of the new coronavirus.
“Health experts say that if enough people communicate, this app can help you avoid prolonged outbreaks of COVID-19 in Canada,” Trudeau said Friday in Ottawa on a stopover at the Canadian Public Health Agency.
The loose app, available for Android and iPhone on Fridays by searching for “COVID Alert” in the App Store, is designed to track the location of phones relative to each other, without collecting non-public information anywhere centrally, virtually. unique IDs for each of the devices.
Users can then be notified if their telephone has recently been near a user’s telephone who then volunteered to say they tested positive for COVID-19.
Once a diagnosed user logs in to the app, a notification is sent with the installed app that has been within two meters of the user in poor health for more than 15 minutes in the last two weeks.
The app will then inspire users to call their provincial fitness facilities for recommendations on how to proceed, once the user receives a notification that someone who was nearby tested positive for COVID-19. In Toronto, for example, exposed Americans want to know how to get tested, and if they don’t, they’ll have to isolate themselves for 14 days from the date of exposure.
Trudeau said the app is lately linked to Ontario’s health care system, however, anyone in Canada can start using it today and that other provinces will soon enroll in it. He said the Atlantic provinces will be the next to link their fitness systems to law enforcement and that the federal government is also in talks with other provinces.
“I need to be clear: this app is mandatory. Its discharge and use are completely voluntary,” Trudeau said. “And it does not collect your name, address, geographic location, or other non-public information.”
The Canadian Privacy Commissioner and his Ontario counterpart support the application, they said on a joint Friday.
“Canadians can use this generation knowing that it includes very vital privacy protections,” said privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien. He and Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim said that government oversight of its implementation and effectiveness, along with independent oversight, is essential to maintain public confidence.
The app works with key codes distributed through Ontario’s public fitness officials, government officials said. Fitness service providers will provide key codes to patients who are definitely diagnosed with COVID-19. Residents of other provinces can still download the app and will be notified if they are near someone who has entered a key code, government officials told reporters.
If someone downloads the app when they receive a positive result in COVID-19 verification, users of the app who were nearby will be notified when the user in poor health “downloads” the key code.
Since the result of positive verification is reported to the user, rather than through public fitness officials, the government has characterized the use of the application as a volunteer. Government officials also refused to call the app “touch search” because it doesn’t collect non-public touch data or clues about locations. In a briefing with the media, officials said it would depend on experts from an advisory board how the data would be used through public aptitude researchers.
The voluntary nature of the application raised doubts about its widespread adoption, as officials said it is imperative that the application be installed through the user who contracted COVID-19 and those who wish to be notified.
When the app was first announced through Trudeau on June 18, generation attorney Michael Geist told Canadian Press that a critical number of other people want to download the apps to make them effective. Otherwise, Geist said at the time, other people would possibly feel a false sense of security because they are not warned.
A separate survey from Statistics Canada revealed Friday that Canadians are divided on the use of touch search apps, with about a quarter of adults over the age of 25 to 64 “very likely” to use an app, and a quarter is “very unlikely” to do so. most commonly privacy and location issues.
The app, designed with open source source from Shopify Inc. workers and BlackBerry Ltd. security features, uses random Bluetooth codes and location data, government officials said.
However, the Canadian government sells users’ IP addresses for an era of 3 months to two years, in what it says is a popular protocol for protecting against cyberattacks. In addition, Android users will need to enable location installations to use Bluetooth, officials have stated that the app’s permission settings do not allow location collection. Government officials said they had been in contact with Google about disabling location facilities to use the Android app, but that as of Friday, the settings should be turned on.
Bluetooth signals sent between users’ phones in the app are encrypted, stored on an individual phone, and deleted after 15 days. Codes that are “downloaded” to servers when someone reports a positive COVID-19 result are also deleted after 15 days, the app’s privacy policy says.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 31, 2020.