Eagle News — The coronavirus 2019 or COVID-19, is one of the most unpredictable pandemics in recent history. Due to the fact that the world has never seen this type of coronavirus strain. As scientists and health officials, are learning more about the virus as it continues to spread around the world, tracing the spread of the virus, is crucial for vaccine development.
Modern technology helps expedites the tracing process. However, there are many counties wherein citizens are protective of their privacy. Apple and Google have teamed up together to develop a tracing app, but many people are weary of the tech giants union because of Google’s privacy ethics. Making the tracing process a bit more difficult to complete and taking up precious time to find a vaccine.
The Australian government however, isn’t wasting any time. They’ve developed their own tracing app called COVIDSafe.
According to COVIDSafe website, the app doesn’t rely on your phone’s location. Rather, the app tags the user’s phone with a reference code to their encrypted information.
By doing this, the app can recognize other COVIDSafe app users. When the 2 users/phones are in close contact with one another, the app takes note of, the date, time, distance and duration of the contact and the other user’s reference code. The site also details how your information will be handled during this pandemic.
The app “speeds up the current manual process of finding people who have been in close contact with someone with COVID-19. This means you’ll be contacted more quickly if you are at risk. The app helps state and territory health officials to quickly contact people who may have been exposed to COVID-19.”
If you live in Australia, and want to participate in tracing, you can download the app in the Google Play Store by clicking here, or the App store by clicking here.
