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Scotland’s new contact tracing app has recommended more than 100 people to isolate themselves, Nicola Sturgeon revealed.
Protect Scotland became available for free download on a smartphone from the Apple App Store or Google Play on September 10.
Since then, more than a million people have downloaded the app.
It lets people know if they have been in close contact with someone who later tests positive for Covid-19.
During the Prime Minister’s Questions, Sturgeon urged those who had not yet done so to download the app.
She told Holyrood: “One million is already a large enough number for us to know that the app can make a difference and I can warn that more than 100 people have been advised to isolate themselves as a result of its use.”
The Scottish government has said that the software will support the Test and Protect system and is “another tool” in the fight against the virus.
Until now, contact tracing has been done manually using a method followed for years to help control the spread of infectious diseases.
Last week, some iPhone users reported that they couldn’t download the app because they weren’t running iOS 13.
The iPhone 6 and previous models released before 2015 cannot run the latest Apple operating system.
Android phone users will also need to be running at least the Android 6.0 operating system, which was released in 2015, says the Protect.scot website.
A 2017 Ofcom investigation suggested that around 3.2 million adults in Scotland owned a smartphone.
How does the application work?
The new app uses Bluetooth technology to alert users if they have been in prolonged close contact with someone who subsequently tests positive for Covid-19.
When an individual initially tests positive for the virus, they are contacted by phone in the usual way.
The contact tracker will ask them if they are users of the application and if they are willing to use the upload function of the application to alert nearby contacts anonymously.
If they agree, a unique code will be sent to their mobile that unlocks this feature in the app.
By sharing your positive test result in this way, the information will become part of an anonymous database.
The application on other users’ phones regularly checks this database to see if they have been in contact with an infected person.
A warning is automatically issued when a match is found, and then users are urged to test or self-isolate for 14 days.
