COVID Alert app is now ready for use in Ontario

For confidentiality, the app won’t collect the user’s personal information or health data and will not know or track their location. (Photo: Philippine Canadian Inquirer)

The Ontario government has announced on Friday, July 31, the availability of a mobile application in their province that will notify its residents if they may have been exposed to someone who contracted coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The app, called COVID Alert, can now be downloaded from the Apple app store and Google Play store for free.

“This innovative tool was developed by some of the best and brightest minds in our province, working in partnership with Ottawa. As businesses open their doors and schools prepare for September, we need to help stop the spread and keep others safe by downloading this COVID Alert app,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in a news release.

The COVID Alert uses Bluetooth to exchange random codes with other nearby app users every five minutes. If a user is infected with the virus, they can anonymously notify others by putting a unique one-time key from the Ontario’s test result website into the app.

For confidentiality, the app won’t collect the user’s personal information or health data and will not know or track their location.

A user will also get notified if the random code they received matches the code of the other user who tells the app that they tested positive for the virus, but the users won’t know whom the codes belong to.

If the COVID Alert finds matching codes, a message will be delivered to an individual they may have been exposed to COVID-19, however, they will not know where or when they had close contact with an infected person.

The Ontario government said those who receive an exposure notification can get tested to help prevent further transmission of the virus to their families and to the community.

Although downloading the app is not mandatory, Ontario’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Christine Elliott is encouraging the Ontarians to use the COVID Alert “as early detection of cases will be important as we continue to carefully reopen more of the province.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in June that the app will be made available across the country, but no exact date was given as to when will it be rolled out to areas outside Ontario.

[READ: Canada to launch mobile app designed to help notify Canadians of COVID-19 exposure]

“Right now, it’s (the app) connected to the Ontario health system but we know other provinces will be joining in soon,” Trudeau said in a news conference on Friday.