TraceTogether, the app that warns if Covid-19 positive patients have met

To stem the contagion from Coronavirus, alongside the restrictive measures adopted by the governments of the various countries, a less traditional but perhaps even more useful corrective will have to be included from now on. We are talking about an app developed in Singapore and known by the name TraceTogether.

In recent weeks, in fact, the Coronavirus it has spread faster and more frighteningly throughout Europe and beyond, reaching also the United States of America and descending in the last few days also in Central and South America.

It is therefore important to try to slow down the spread of the virus as much as possible; in this context, the development of the app should be read which, using the bluetooth signal to detect other phones with the app installed, is able to “save” the meeting between two people in memory. This data is obviously fundamental, useful in the event that the chain of contacts of an infected person has to be reconstructed.

TraceTogether, an app to track Coronavirus infections

Given the rapid spread of Coronavirus all over the planet, experts from the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and the Ministry of Health of Singapore have thought of creating an app that could somehow help to slow down the infection.

TraceTogether thus allows you to record on a large server the contacts of each individual user who downloaded the app by keeping them in memory for 21 days. If one of these users proves to be positive for Coronavirus it will be much easier in this way to trace all the people with whom it came into contact, informing them quickly and usefully.

TraceTogether, how it works

The application is available both on Google Play and on the Apple store: once downloaded, simply enter your phone number and one-time password: in this way our phone number will be stored on the server and associated with an ID that can only be accessed by the Government of Singapore. The user will therefore authorize the upload of data to the Minister of Health of Singapore.

To work, however, it will be necessary for each individual user activate the Bluetooth function of your phone: in this way all the contacts that the user has had in 21 days will be recorded, provided that the other people have installed the same app.

If one of the contacts is positive to Coronavirus, the system would send a message alert to all the people who have come into close contact with the infected, warning them of the danger in time. Even the health authorities could easily trace all those with whom the infected had relations and arrange to place them in quarantine.

TraceTogether and the issue of privacy

All contacts are stored in our phone and, only after a specific authorization and in case of a positive outcome to the Coronavirus, are they communicated to the Government of Singapore. In short, everything passes from the will of the user who, at the level of sensitive data, ‘releases’ only the phone number and nothing else.

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