Voluntary nationwide contact tracing app coming soon, says Trudeau
Today's announcement likely to receive scrutiny from privacy advocates
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today he hopes Canadians will download a new app on their cellphones that will alert them if they've come into contact with someone who has tested positiveforCOVID-19.
"It will be up to individual Canadians to decide whether to download the app or not, but the app will be most effective when as many people as possible have it,"Trudeau saidduring his daily briefing this morning.
"There are over 30 million smartphones that could take this app in Canada, so we can talk about a significant portion of the Canadian population that could be protected by this app."
The federally-backedproject has been spearheadedby the Canadian Digital Service, a federal initiative, and theOntario Digital Service, with help from volunteers from the tech firmShopify. Itincorporates Bluetooth technology provided by Apple and Google. The app will undergo a security review by BlackBerry.
The technology works by having people who test positive upload their results anonymously to the app, called COVID Alert, using a temporary code given to them bya health care provider, saida federal media release.
Watch: Trudeau describes how the new COVID-19 contact tracing app will work
Other users who have the app and who have been near someone who has tested positivewill then be alerted that they've been exposed and a notification willencourage them to reach out to their local public health authorities.
Ontario will roll out the app first. Officials in that province said they hope to have the app available for download on July 2 for iPhones running iOS 5.0 or later versions, and for Android phones running Android 6.0 or later versions.
The federal government said it wants to eventually have it in use across Canada in the coming weeks and months, with the risk of a second wave on the horizon.
Public health officials have been championing the practice of tracking people who may have come in contact with an infected person in order to get them tested and isolated. Contact tracing iswidely seen as vital to a country'spandemic recovery.
While most provinces are doing that laborious work with volunteers, conversations and negotiations have continued with technology companiesfor weeks about thedevelopment ofsmartphone appsto speed up the effort.
Last month, Trudeau said the government washoping to publicly endorse one app toencourage its use across the country.
App use is voluntary, says PM
In a rare collaboration,Apple and Google have teamed up on softwarethat notifies people automatically if they may have been exposed to the coronavirus. It uses Bluetooth wireless technology to detect when someone who downloaded the app has spent time near another app user who later tested positive for the virus.
Trudeau said that will allow theapp to run in the background without rapidly draining aphone's battery.
"It's something you can just download and forget about," he said.
"Because it's completely anonymous, because it's low maintenance, because it is completely respectful of your privacy, includingno location services or geotagging of any sortpeople can be confident that this is an easy measure that they can have to continue to keep us all safe as we reopen, as we get more active."
The tech giants are providing the software, but public health agencies around the world will have to develop their own contact tracing apps. In an attempt to promote use, Apple and Google are restricting use of their technology to one app per country.
Alberta hasbeen using its own appcalledABTraceTogether for weeks now.That has some people worryingabouta patchwork of appsacross the country thatcould lead to confusing messaging,low uptake numbers and inconsistentdata.
"I think any amount of people that download it will be useful for that person and for our society," said Trudeau.
"But it's certain that if we can talk about a 50 per centuptake, for example, or more,then it becomes extraordinarily useful."
Trudeau stressed that the new app will be completely voluntary and added that thefederal privacy commissioner worked on the app.
However, in a statement issuedlater in the day,a spokesperson for the privacy commissioner's office said it'sstill waiting for more information about the app.
"We have requested and are awaiting necessary information and, until such time as we receive that information, we have not provided our recommendations to the government," saidVito Pilieci in an email to CBC.
"We are working diligently and responsibly to develop that advice."
Privacy advocates have raised concerns about contact tracing appsabout the data they collectand how that information isstored.
TeresaScassa, the Canada research chair in information law and policy at the University of Ottawa, said theBluetooth model is the most "privacy-protective", but it's also the least ambitious.
"I think in the current climate it would have been difficult to go with with a different solution other than [the] most privacy-protective one, because I do think that there is a trust deficit," she said.
Scassa said she's also not certain Canadians will rush to the app store to download it.
"I'm not convinced that this is going to be a success and I think the important thing to remember is that contact tracing apps have now been launched in many different countries and it's not clear that they've been a success anywhere that they've been launched," she said.
"The level of uptake has been relatively low wherever they've been launched."
Claudiu Popa, a cybersecurity expert with Datarisk Canada, said he's still waiting to see more information about how the anonymous data is to be stored.
"We've seen the use of artificial intelligence and and big data being used around the world, and of course the PR movement towards just how beneficial this is," he said. "That is not what we should be after. We should be after helping individuals and increasing public health while balancing and maximizing public trust."
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