Health Protection Agency (HPA) has launched a digital application ‘TraceEkee’ to help in tracing contacts of potential positive cases of COVID-19.
The voluntary TraceEkee app, now available on Android and pending approval on Apple App Store, has been jointly built by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) and a group of local developers using code from Singapore’s TraceTogether app.
“TraceEkee will support the efforts to mitigate community spread of COVID-19 in the Maldives through community-driven detailed contact-tracing,” HPA said.
The app detects other users of the app through Bluetooth signals. A “beacon” is given out thrice a minute, and a unique ID that resets every 15 minutes is assigned to each user. Therefore, app users will be anonymous to other users. Once a beacon is detected “TraceEkee” App will record the data.
However, the information will not be automatically sent to the health authorities, and it does not record any personal information such as the location. Additional information about the app’s privacy policy is provided on HPA’s website.
HPA said if a user of the app develops symptoms of COVID-19, the authority will seek the user’s consent to upload the user data to trace people who had come in contact with the user. Data decryption will reveal those who came in contact with the user and identify those who are at most risk, who will then be contacted by HPA.
Full details are available at the link below:
