COVID Tracker Ireland is a

digital contact tracing Digital contact tracing is a method of contact tracing relying on tracking systems, most often based on mobile devices, to determine contact between an infected patient and a user. It came to public prominence in the form of COVID-19 apps durin ...

app released by the

Irish Government The Government of Ireland () is the executive authority of Ireland, headed by the , the head of government. The government – also known as the cabinet – is composed of ministers, each of whom must be a member of the , which consists of ...

and the

Health Service Executive The Health Service Executive (HSE) () is the publicly funded healthcare system in Ireland, responsible for the provision of health and personal social services. It came into operation on 1 January 2005. The current director-general is Berna ...

on 7 July 2020 to prevent the spread of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The app uses ENS and

Bluetooth technology Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

to determine whether a user have been a close contact of someone for more than 15 minutes who tested positive for COVID-19. On 8 July, the app reached one million registered users within 36 hours after its launch, representing more than 30% of the population of Ireland and over a quarter of all smartphone users in the country. As of August 2021, over 3,030,000 people have downloaded the app.

History

The development process of the COVID Tracker app began on 22 March 2020 when the

(HSE) contacted

Waterford Waterford ( ) is a City status in Ireland, city in County Waterford in the South-East Region, Ireland, south-east of Ireland. It is located within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster. The city is situated at the head of Waterford H ...

tech company NearForm to build a

contact tracing app COVID-19 apps include mobile-software applications for digital contact-tracing—i.e. the process of identifying persons ("contacts") who may have been in contact with an infected individual—deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous ...

for

using existing

in smartphones to support

contact tracing In public health, contact tracing is the process of identifying people who may have been exposed to an infected person ("contacts") and subsequent collection of further data to assess transmission. By tracing the contacts of infected individua ...

. The €850,000 project involved representatives from the

Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their o ...

, the

Economic and Social Research Institute The Economic and Social Research Institute (Institiúid Taighde Eacnamaíochta agus Sóisialta in Irish) is an Irish research institute founded in 1960 to provide evidence-based research used to inform public policy debate and decision-making. ...

(ESRI), the

Garda Síochána (; meaning "the Guardian(s) of the Peace") is the national police and security service of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (; "Guardians") or "the Guards". The service is headed by the Garda Commissio ...

, the

Irish Army The Irish Army () is the land component of the Defence Forces (Ireland), Defence Forces of Republic of Ireland, Ireland.The Defence Forces are made up of the Permanent Defence Forces – the standing branches – and the Reserve Defence Forces. ...

and

Science Foundation Ireland Science Foundation Ireland (SFI; ) was a statutory body in Ireland. It was an agency of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, with responsibility for funding oriented basic and applied research in th ...

. NearForm was originally working on a centralised app that would group users' data together for authorities to study, but in May 2020, the development team contacted

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

and

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

to secure beta access to the Exposure Notifications System (ENS) developed by the two companies, which allows the COVID Tracker app to guarantee the anonymity of users and ensure any data transfer to contact tracers would happen only with user consent. Within three months of development, the team had a secure, tested and reliable contact tracing app that worked and was ready to be deployed on a national scale. The COVID Tracker app was launched by the

Government of Ireland The Government of Ireland () is the executive (government), executive authority of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, headed by the , the head of government. The government – also known as the cabinet (government), cabinet – is composed of Mini ...

and the HSE on 7 July 2020 with 862,000 downloads on the first day of launch. The

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

StopCOVID NI and

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

Protect Scotland apps are based on the same NearForm technology and interoperate with it. NearForm have made the app source-code freely available under the

MIT License The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility. Unl ...

. In September 2020, NearForm deployed localised versions of the app under the "COVID Alert" brand in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

s of

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

and

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. On 19 October, the COVID Tracker app became one of the first wave of national apps linked with other countries across the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

after being linked with similar contact tracing apps from

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. In July 2021, the app was updated to allow people to store and display the

EU Digital COVID Certificate The EU Digital COVID Certificate (EUDCC), best known in Italy as the Green Pass and in France as the Sanitary Pass or Health Pass (''passe sanitaire''), was a digital certificate that a person has been vaccinated against COVID-19, tested for i ...

Contact tracing

The COVID Tracker app uses

Bluetooth Low Energy Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE, colloquially BLE, formerly marketed as Bluetooth Smart) is a wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) aimed at novel applications ...

and

's and

's Exposure Notifications System to generate anonymous IDs to log: * Any phone users are in close contact with that also has the app installed. * The distance between users' phone and another app users' phone. * The length of time users' phone is near another app users' phone. Every two hours the app downloads a list of anonymous codes which have been shared with the

(HSE) by other people using the app who have tested positive for COVID-19. If a user have been closer than 2 metres for more than 15 minutes with any of these phones, that user will get an alert notification on their phone. The app requires users to turn on the Exposure Notifications service and will only be available to those with phones running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or higher, or

iOS 13 iOS 13 is the thirteenth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple for the iPhone, iPod Touch and HomePod. The successor to iOS 12, it was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June ...

.5 or higher.

Privacy and data

The

claims that the COVID Tracker app protects the privacy of all users and was designed to protect users' privacy.

Concerns

On 18 July 2020, researchers at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

issued a report claiming user privacy is not protected adequately in the COVID Tracking app if used with

Google Play Services Google Play Services is a proprietary software package produced by Google for installation on Android devices. It consists of background services and libraries for use by mobile apps running on the device. When it was introduced in 2012, it pr ...

. The report shows how Google Play Services used on

Android devices Android is an operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen-based mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android has historically been developed by ...

sends highly sensitive personal data to Google servers every 20 minutes including users'

IMEI The International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) is a numeric identifier, usually Unique identifier, unique, for 3GPP and iDEN mobile phones, as well as some satellite phones. It is usually found printed inside the battery compartment of the ph ...

, hardware

serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

SIM serial number A typical SIM card (mini-SIM with micro-SIM cutout)A SIM card or SIM (subscriber identity module) is an integrated circuit (IC) intended to securely store an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number and its related key, which are us ...

, handset phone number and a

Gmail Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...

address An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using border, political boundaries and street names as references, ...

, which potentially allows for

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

-based

location tracking A positioning system is a system for determining the position of an object in space. Positioning system technologies exist ranging from interplanetary coverage with meter accuracy to workspace and laboratory coverage with sub-millimeter accuracy. ...

of the phone. The researchers at Trinity College described the revealed data transfers as "extremely troubling from a privacy viewpoint" while the

Irish Council for Civil Liberties The Irish Council for Civil Liberties () is an Irish non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the civil liberties and human rights of people in Ireland. History Founded on by future President Mary Robinson, Kader Asmal and others, the or ...

described it as being "completely opaque to users and the HSE themselves".

Android battery drainage

On 9 August 2020, it was announced that the HSE was working with

to identify and fix phone battery issues after the COVID Tracker app was reportedly draining

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

users' batteries in 5 hours. On 10 August, it was reported that 10% of Android users (86,000) uninstalled the app, following battery drainage issues. On 11 August, the HSE announced that an update had been rolled out to 70% of Android phones, which is expected to fix the issue, and that 45,000 people had reinstalled the app in the last few days.

References

External links

Android app

iOS app

NearForm
{{COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland Government software Android (operating system) software IOS software COVID-19 contact tracing apps