Available from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, It can be found by searching COVID Tracker Ireland on the app stores.
The Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), the source code, the Product Explainer for the Covid Tracker App, and a series of app design and development reports are available on the HSE website.
As the country reopens, contact tracing and the early identification of symptoms, will become increasingly important as more people are visiting family and friends, exercising, socialising, shopping, returning to work and using public transport.
The Covid Tracker App allows each individual to play an important part in controlling COVID-19, helping everyone to stay safe and protect each other. The app will record if a user is in close contact with another user by exchanging anonymous codes that are held on the users’ phones.
People who test positive for coronavirus will be able to choose if they want to anonymously alert other app users who they have been in close contact with. In this way the app will augment the existing testing and tracing operation and enable the notification of close contacts that are unknown to each other.
The app will also allow the user to anonymously record information about how they feel every day. The symptom tracker has the potential to generate valuable national data relevant to COVID-19. The accurate reporting of the timing of the first onset of symptoms will improve the speed and the accuracy of the tracing process.
Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the HSE Fran Thompson said, “The design of Covid Tracker App has been informed by a robust development and testing programme. The app development process here in Ireland has been led by the HSE and the Department of Health, in collaboration with the Government Chief Information Officer and An Garda Síochána, together with technical partners from the Irish private sector (Expleo, Nearform, Information Security Assurance Services Ltd. (ISAS), and EdgeScan) and scientific partners from Science Foundation Ireland. Results from our testing programme have shown that the app was able to accurately detect 72% of close contacts using the Google Apple API.”
