Colorado Springs, Cologne. (KRDO) – Colorado will be the first state in the country to launch a phone application to help track a COID-19 case.
State Col. Colorado has partnered with Google and .Pal to develop “Exposure Notification Express,” which will go live on Sunday.
Users are expected to be notified by the app if they may have been opened in CO COVID-19.
At 9 a.m. Sunday, Coloradans will receive a notification on their phone allowing them to choose whether or not they want to use the app. The app is available for both iPhone and Android. Users can log out of the system at any time.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment believes the new exposure notification application will speed up contact tracing efforts.
If you and someone close to you have an app in your phone, your phone will be replaced by so-called “tokens” via Bluetooth. It closes the “tokens” l 14g interaction for 14 days. If someone who has the app tests positive for Covid-19, people with close contact “tokens” with that person will be warned if the Covid-19 patient approves.
“You’ll get a warning on your phone that says on X-Date, you’ve got a covid,” said Sarah Tuneberg of CDPHE.
The KRDO asked state health officials how Colorado’s personal information would be protected if they used the app. State officials claim that even if the system is hacked, no relevant or personal information will be tampered with.
“Technology could not be more secure. There is no personally identifiable data that is collected. It uses Bluetooth, uses GPS. So there is no location information. There is no name. There is no test data. There is health. No information, “Tunberg said.
So what information is being processed to know who will be notified? Officials say it’s all about those “tokens,” which are apparently made up of random numbers and letters.
“The only information associated with this is a random string of letters and numbers that are generated on the phone itself and traded back and forth with other phones, and that’s it. So if you can hack into a phone or database “It’s all a series of letters and numbers,” Tunberg explained.
Public health leaders told KRDO that studies have shown that if 15% of the community uses the application, it could cause 8% death from COVID-19 transmission and 6% from coronavirus.
For iPhone users, the exposure notification system will be a setting option. Android users will have to download an app in the Google Play Store.
