COVID Tracker Ireland

Last updated

COVID Tracker Ireland
Developer(s)
Initial release7 July 2020;3 years ago (2020-07-07)
Stable release
Android1.0.8 / 30 November 2021;2 years ago (2021-11-30)
iOS1.0.8 / 1 December 2021;2 years ago (2021-12-01)
Repository github.com/HSEIreland/covid-tracker-app
Operating system Android, iOS
Standard(s)
Available in English, Irish, Arabic, French, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese
Type Digital contact tracing
COVID-19 apps
Licence MIT License
Website covidtracker.gov.ie

COVID Tracker Ireland is a digital contact tracing app released by the Irish Government and the Health Service Executive on 7 July 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Ireland. [1] [2] [3] The app uses ENS and Bluetooth technology to determine whether a user have been a close contact of someone for more than 15 minutes who tested positive for COVID-19. [4] [5] On 8 July, the app reached one million registered users within 36 hours after its launch, representing more than 30% of the population of Ireland and over a quarter of all smartphone users in the country. [6] [7] [8] [9] As of August 2021, over 3,030,000 people have downloaded the app.

Contents

History

The development process of the COVID Tracker app began on 22 March 2020 when the Health Service Executive (HSE) contacted Waterford tech company NearForm to build a contact tracing app for Ireland using existing Bluetooth technology in smartphones to support contact tracing. [6] The €850,000 project involved representatives from the Department of Health, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), the Garda Síochána, the Irish Army and Science Foundation Ireland. [10] [11] NearForm was originally working on a centralised app that would group users' data together for authorities to study, [12] but in May 2020, the development team contacted Apple and Google to secure beta access to the Exposure Notifications System (ENS) developed by the two companies, which allows the COVID Tracker app to guarantee the anonymity of users and ensure any data transfer to contact tracers would happen only with user consent. [10] [13] [14] Within three months of development, the team had a secure, tested and reliable contact tracing app that worked and was ready to be deployed on a national scale. [6] The COVID Tracker app was launched by the Government of Ireland and the HSE on 7 July 2020 with 862,000 downloads on the first day of launch. [15]

The Northern Ireland StopCOVID NI and Scottish Protect Scotland apps are based on the same NearForm technology and interoperate with it. [16] [17] NearForm have made the app source-code freely available under the MIT License. [18] [19] In September 2020, NearForm deployed localised versions of the app under the "COVID Alert" brand in the U.S. states of Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. [20] [21]

On 19 October, the COVID Tracker app became one of the first wave of national apps linked with other countries across the European Union after being linked with similar contact tracing apps from Italy and Germany. [22]

In July 2021, the app was updated to allow people to store and display the EU Digital COVID Certificate. [23]

Contact tracing

The COVID Tracker app uses Bluetooth Low Energy and Google's and Apple's Exposure Notifications System to generate anonymous IDs to log:

Every two hours the app downloads a list of anonymous codes which have been shared with the Health Service Executive (HSE) by other people using the app who have tested positive for COVID-19. [25] If a user have been closer than 2 metres for more than 15 minutes with any of these phones, that user will get an alert notification on their phone. [26] [27]

The app requires users to turn on the Exposure Notifications service and will only be available to those with phones running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or higher, or iOS 13.5 or higher. [28]

Privacy and data

The Health Service Executive claims that the COVID Tracker app protects the privacy of all users and was designed to protect users' privacy. [29] [30]

Concerns

On 18 July 2020, researchers at Trinity College, Dublin issued a report claiming user privacy is not protected adequately in the COVID Tracking app if used with Google Play Services. [31] [32] The report shows how Google Play Services used on Android devices sends highly sensitive personal data to Google servers every 20 minutes including users' IMEI, hardware serial number, SIM serial number, handset phone number and a Gmail address, which potentially allows for IP address-based location tracking of the phone. [33] [34] The researchers at Trinity College described the revealed data transfers as "extremely troubling from a privacy viewpoint" while the Irish Council for Civil Liberties described it as being "completely opaque to users and the HSE themselves". [35]

Android battery drainage

On 9 August 2020, it was announced that the HSE was working with Google to identify and fix phone battery issues after the COVID Tracker app was reportedly draining Android users' batteries in 5 hours. [36] [37] On 10 August, it was reported that 10% of Android users (86,000) uninstalled the app, following battery drainage issues. [38] [39] On 11 August, the HSE announced that an update had been rolled out to 70% of Android phones, which is expected to fix the issue, and that 45,000 people had reinstalled the app in the last few days. [40]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Android 11</span> Eleventh major version of the Android mobile operating system

Android 11 is the eleventh major release and 18th version of Android, the mobile operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. It was released on September 8, 2020. The first phone launched in Europe with Android 11 was the Vivo X51 5G and after its full stable release, the first phone in the world which came with Android 11 after Google Pixel 5 was OnePlus 8T.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 apps</span> Mobile apps designed to aid contact tracing

COVID-19 apps include mobile-software applications for digital contact-tracing - i.e. the process of identifying persons ("contacts") who may have been in contact with an infected individual - deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aarogya Setu</span> Mobile application for COVID-19 contact tracing in India

Aarogya Setu is an Indian COVID-19 "contact tracing, syndromic mapping and self-assessment" digital service, primarily a mobile app, developed by the National Informatics Centre under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The app reached more than 100 million installs in 40 days. On 26 May, amid growing privacy and security concerns, the source code of the app was made public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coronavirus Australia</span> App released by the Australian Government

Coronavirus Australia was an app released by the Australian Government designed to allow users to access information about the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. The app was released by the Department of Health on 29 March 2020, and decommissioned two years later on 31 August 2022. Over its lifetime, the app was downloaded over a million times and was initially ranked first in the Apple App Store's "Health and Fitness" category. Due to the short development period of two weeks, the app initially served primarily as an aggregate of links to official government websites. Shortly after an update was released adding a voluntary "isolation registration" form that collected the location, name, age, mobile phone number, isolation start date, and various other details about users who were self isolating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BlueTrace</span> COVID-19 contact tracing software

BlueTrace is an open-source application protocol that facilitates digital contact tracing of users to stem the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially developed by the Singaporean Government, BlueTrace powers the contact tracing for the TraceTogether app. Australia and the United Arab Emirates have already adopted the protocol in their gov apps, and other countries were considering BlueTrace for adoption. A principle of the protocol is the preservation of privacy and health authority co-operation.

TraceTogether was a digital system implemented by the Government of Singapore to facilitate contact tracing efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore. The main goal was a quick identification of persons who may have come into close contact with anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19. The system helps in identifying contacts such as strangers encountered in public one would not otherwise be able to identify or remember. Together with SafeEntry, it allows the identification of specific locations where a spread between close contacts may occur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exposure Notification</span> Initiative for mobile device-based privacy-preserving contact tracing

The (Google/Apple) Exposure Notification (GAEN) system, originally known as the Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing Project, is a framework and protocol specification developed by Apple Inc. and Google to facilitate digital contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic. When used by health authorities, it augments more traditional contact tracing techniques by automatically logging close approaches among notification system users using Android or iOS smartphones. Exposure Notification is a decentralized reporting protocol built on a combination of Bluetooth Low Energy technology and privacy-preserving cryptography. It is an opt-in feature within COVID-19 apps developed and published by authorized health authorities. Unveiled on April 10, 2020, it was made available on iOS on May 20, 2020 as part of the iOS 13.5 update and on December 14, 2020 as part of the iOS 12.5 update for older iPhones. On Android, it was added to devices via a Google Play Services update, supporting all versions since Android Marshmallow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVIDSafe</span> Contact tracing app by the Australian Department of Health

COVIDSafe was a digital contact tracing app released by the Australian Government on 26 April 2020 to help combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The app was intended to augment traditional contact tracing by automatically tracking encounters between users and later allowing a state or territory health authority to warn a user they have come within 1.5 metres with an infected person for 15 minutes or more. To achieve this, it used the BlueTrace and Herald protocol, originally developed by the Singaporean Government and VMWare respectively, to passively collect an anonymised registry of near contacts. The efficacy of the app was questioned over its lifetime, ultimately identifying just 2 confirmed cases by the time it was decommissioned on 16 August 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TCN Protocol</span> Proximity contact tracing protocol

The Temporary Contact Numbers Protocol, or TCN Protocol, is an open source, decentralized, anonymous exposure alert protocol developed by Covid Watch in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Covid Watch team, started as an independent research collaboration between Stanford University and the University of Waterloo was the first in the world to publish a white paper, develop, and open source fully anonymous Bluetooth exposure alert technology in collaboration with CoEpi after writing a blog post on the topic in early March.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital contact tracing</span> Method of contact tracing using mobile devices

Digital contact tracing is a method of contact tracing relying on tracking systems, most often based on mobile devices, to determine contact between an infected patient and a user. It came to public prominence in the form of COVID-19 apps during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the initial outbreak, many groups have developed nonstandard protocols designed to allow for wide-scale digital contact tracing, most notably BlueTrace and Exposure Notification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing</span> Proximity contact tracing protocol

Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing is an open protocol developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate digital contact tracing of infected participants. The protocol, like competing protocol Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT), uses Bluetooth Low Energy to track and log encounters with other users. The protocols differ in their reporting mechanism, with PEPP-PT requiring clients to upload contact logs to a central reporting server, whereas with DP-3T, the central reporting server never has access to contact logs nor is it responsible for processing and informing clients of contact. Because contact logs are never transmitted to third parties, it has major privacy benefits over the PEPP-PT approach; however, this comes at the cost of requiring more computing power on the client side to process infection reports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NHS COVID-19</span> UK contact tracing app for COVID-19

NHS COVID-19 was a voluntary contact tracing app for monitoring the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in England and Wales. It had been available since 24 September 2020 for Android and iOS smartphones, and can be used by anyone aged 16 or over.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NZ COVID Tracer</span> Mobile software application

NZ COVID Tracer is a mobile software application that enables a person to record places they have visited, in order to facilitate tracing who may have been in contact with a person infected with the COVID-19 virus. The app allows users to scan official QR codes at the premises of businesses and other organisations they visit, to create a digital diary. It was launched by New Zealand's Ministry of Health on 20 May 2020, during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corona-Warn-App</span> German COVID-19 contact tracing app

Corona-Warn-App was the official and open-source COVID-19 contact tracing app used for digital contact tracing in Germany made by SAP and Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID Alert</span> Canadian contact-tracing app for COVID-19

COVID Alert was the Exposure Notification service app for the country of Canada. It launched in the province of Ontario on July 31, 2020, and became available in nearly all Canadian provinces by October of that year, excluding Alberta, and British Columbia.

SwissCovid is a COVID-19 contact tracing app used for digital contact tracing in Switzerland. Use of the app is voluntary and based on a decentralized approach using Bluetooth Low Energy and Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (dp3t).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PathCheck</span> American nonprofit organization

PathCheck Foundation is a volunteer-led nonprofit organization founded in February 2020 at MIT that develops COVID-19 apps for digital contact tracing. The organization consists of over 1000 volunteers. In addition, various companies donate employee time to the foundation. The organization was previously known as COVID Safe Paths but was renamed PathCheck Foundation on June 28, 2020.

Software for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation takes many forms. It includes mobile apps for contact tracing and notifications about infection risks, vaccine passports, software for enabling – or improving the effectiveness of – lockdowns and social distancing, Web software for the creation of related information services, and research and development software. A common issue is that few apps interoperate, reducing their effectiveness.

COVID-19 Contact-Confirming Application, abbreviated as COCOA, is a COVID-19 application for smartphones provided by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. The application uses Bluetooth to detect and record suspected close contacts between users. If the contact is diagnosed with COVID-19, the user will be notified. After receiving the notification, the user can consider self-isolation or go to a medical institution for treatment.

StaySafe.ph or Stay Safe is a digital contact tracing app launched by the Philippine government as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines. The mobile app was developed and published by MultiSys Technologies Corporation.

References

  1. ↑ "COVID Tracker app now available to download". Health Service Executive. 6 July 2020. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  2. ↑ "COVID Tracker app". Government of Ireland . Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  3. ↑ "HSE launch the COVID Tracker App". Health Service Executive. 7 July 2020. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  4. ↑ McGrath, Dominic (7 July 2020). "'A powerful tool': How does the new Covid-19 contact tracing app work?". TheJournal.ie . Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  5. ↑ Leprince-Ringuet, Daphne (7 July 2020). "Contact tracing: Ireland launches its app following Apple and Google's model". ZDNet . Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 "Building the gold-standard COVID-19 contact tracing app within 3 months". nearform.com. Health Service Executive. 24 July 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  7. ↑ "Ireland donates the world's most successful contact tracing app to the Linux Foundation". nearform.com. NearForm. 20 July 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  8. ↑ Burns, Sarah; Wall, Martin (8 July 2020). "One million people have now downloaded Ireland's Covid-19 tracker app". The Irish Times . Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  9. ↑ "One million downloads of COVID Tracker App in 48 hours". Health Service Executive. 8 July 2020. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  10. 1 2 "Inside the collaborative effort behind Ireland's COVID Tracker app". nearform.com. NearForm. 14 July 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  11. ↑ Ryan, Philip; Dillon, Fiona (6 July 2020). "New contact tracing app launch due within days". Herald.ie . Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  12. ↑ Asher Hamilton, Isobel (25 July 2020). "How Ireland built its COVID-19 contract tracing app, which is so successful that US states want to use it". Business Insider . Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  13. ↑ "Apple and Google partner on COVID-19 contact tracing technology". Apple Inc. 10 April 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  14. ↑ "Exposure Notification API launches to support public health agencies". blog.google. 20 May 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  15. ↑ "More than 862,000 download Covid tracker app in first day". RTÉ News and Current Affairs. 8 July 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  16. ↑ "Covid-19: Tracing app is released for NI". BBC News . 30 July 2020. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  17. ↑ "Scotland's new tracing app: What you need to know about Protect Scotland". BBC News . 10 September 2020. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
  18. ↑ "Building the gold-standard COVID-19 contact tracing app within 3 months". NearForm. 19 June 2020. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  19. ↑ "HSEIreland / covid-tracker-app". GitHub . Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  20. ↑ Rushing, Ellie; Goodin-Smith, Oona. "Contact tracing app tells Pennsylvanians if they've been exposed to coronavirus". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  21. ↑ Gorey, Colm (2 October 2020). "NearForm contact-tracing apps launched in New York and New Jersey". Silicon Republic . Retrieved 11 October 2020.
  22. ↑ Murray, Sean (19 October 2020). "Ireland's Covid tracker app is now linked with similar contact tracing apps from Italy and Germany". TheJournal.ie . Retrieved 19 October 2020.
  23. ↑ Burke, Céimin (13 July 2021). "Covid tracker app will be able to store EU Digital Covid Cert". TheJournal.ie . Retrieved 7 August 2021.
  24. 1 2 3 "How the COVID Tracker app works". Government of Ireland. Archived from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  25. ↑ "9th July - HSE Contact Tracing App". Leitrim County Council . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  26. ↑ O'Brien, Ciara (7 July 2020). "What is Covid Tracker Ireland?". The Irish Times . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  27. ↑ "Everything You Need To Know About The COVID Tracker App". everymum.ie. July 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  28. ↑ Gorey, Colm (7 July 2020). "4 things you need to know before installing the HSE Covid-19 contact-tracing app". Silicon Republic . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  29. ↑ "Privacy and how we use your data". Government of Ireland. Archived from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  30. ↑ Mangan, Ian (9 July 2020). "Coronavirus app Ireland: How safe is my privacy on the new Covid Tracker?". Irish Mirror . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  31. ↑ Hennessy, Michelle (23 July 2020). "Concerns over Google Play Services reignited over Covid apps but HSE warns against conflating issues". TheJournal.ie . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  32. ↑ Leith, Douglas; Farrell, Stephen (18 July 2020). "Contact Tracing App Privacy: What Data Is Shared By Europe's GAEN Contact Tracing Apps" (PDF). Trinity College Dublin . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  33. ↑ Gorey, Colm (27 July 2020). "Does existing Android feature threaten privacy of contact-tracing apps?". Silicon Republic . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  34. ↑ Doherty, Tomas (22 July 2020). "HSE defends Covid tracker app amid privacy concerns". BreakingNews.ie. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  35. ↑ Brennan, Cianan (21 July 2020). "Covid-19 tracking app sharing possible location data with Google". Irish Examiner . Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  36. ↑ "COVID Tracker app: HSE working with Google amid reports of battery issues". Newstalk. 9 August 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  37. ↑ Dunne, William (9 August 2020). "Covid tracker app 'draining phone battery in 5 hours' as HSE issues response to disgruntled users". Irish Mirror . Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  38. ↑ Brennan, Cianan (9 August 2020). "HSE'S Covid-19 tracker app has been deleted by 86,000 people". Irish Examiner . Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  39. ↑ "Google to fix Covid tracker app after thousands delete Android version". BreakingNews.ie. 10 August 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.[ permanent dead link ]
  40. ↑ Ní Aodha, Gráinne (11 August 2020). "HSE says fix to stop Covid Tracker app draining batteries has been rolled out to 70% of Irish Android phones". TheJournal.ie . Retrieved 11 August 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.