wizee

Not Porsche related, but beneficial for everyone here, including those attending meets:

The Canadian "Covid Alert" contact tracing app by Health Canada has been released today. I believe they are initially targeting Ontario right now, but will expand it to the rest of the country. Please set it up on your phones, and encourage everyone you know to use it. It will help people recently exposed to Covid-positive individuals know to self-isolate and get tested before symptoms appear or asymptomatic spread occurs. However, it can only be effective if adoption is widespread. Of course, it's not meant to replace social distancing and mask wearing, just supplement it, just as you still need to wear seatbelts on a car with airbags. Contact tracing will allow us to continue reopening the economy without infection rates exploding.

The Canadian Covid Alert app is designed to be privacy preserving, using the Apple/Google developed decentralized contact tracing mechanism, unlike the invasive centralized contract tracing systems in some countries. Please correct anyone spreading misinformation that Covid Alert is a government attempt to spy on everyone's location or contacts. The app does not use your GPS location, and it never uploads information about who you have encountered.

The Apple/Google system broadcasts pseudo-random Rolling Proximity Identifiers (RPIs) that can't be tied back to an individual unless the individual's secret Temporary Exposure Key (TEK) is published voluntarily by the individual (in case of infection). Your device will locally store RPIs of nearby devices observed over Bluetooth, and will periodically download a database of TEKs for known infected individuals. It will locally (on your phone) check if recently encountered RPIs correspond to any published infected TEKs, and let you know if you were exposed to someone infected without involving any centralized server in this check. For more information on how it works, read the specifications: https://www.apple.com/covid19/contacttracing

Download links:
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/covid-alert/id1520284227
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...nada.stopcovid

Dyim

They should pay people to download and use the app. That's how you get lots of people to sign up.
30 million cellphone users at $10 per user is only 300 million.
A drop in the bucket out of all the money spent so far on COVID.
Much more accurate way to contact trace than use public health agency.

Gregster

Lol if it's anything like the rest of the IT Network and systems the feds have.. it will be complete crap

ekam

Yeah what's another $300mil when our country's leader gives away $900mil contracts to his buddies without blinking!

The more money he gives away to people, the higher chance he'll get re-elected!

Torontoworker

What is the point of the app if its voluntary? You'll have all these hundreds of thousands of negative testing people (or non tested) running around *hoping* people that tested positive will voluntarily enter this test result into the app. I'm going to state right here that barely 10% of the people that have tested positive will use this app. Its the human condition that people don't want to be a modern day equivalent to the Scarlet Letter. And where do you draw the line here? AIDS next, Measles, Mumps, Criminal Record, (wait that last one...) etc etc. I get the idea - I just think its unworkable. I also rarely have my bluetooth on for reasons of battery life unless I am connecting to a device I own. Outside walking around? I never have it turned on.

wc11

App won't work on phone older than 5 years apparently and your software must be up to date.
Another ill conceived government plan.

I am the Walrus

Ya, requiring your software be up to date, the nerve /s

Securing your device is so ridiculous

wc11

You're assuming that everyone with a phone in the first place upgrades regularly or can afford to do so which is incorrect.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7244628/c...-app-download/


"That means iPhone users need at least iOS 13.5, which excludes models older than the iPhone 6S. According to Apple’s website, iOS 13.5 “introduces the Exposure Notification API to support COVID-19 contact tracing apps from public health authorities.”

Android users, meanwhile, need at least version 6."

wizee

There’s nothing the government could do about this apart from buying people new phones. Furthermore, 81% of actively used iPhones are on iOS 13.x (according to Apple’s stats), and 90% of active Android users are on Android 6.0+. Few people who use phones more than 5 years old even know what an app is or how to install one, so I doubt they’d reach those users even if they did somehow support older OS versions. A newer phone isn’t much of a cost barrier either - used 4 year old phones can be had for under $50.

Anakin Skywalker

I downloaded it to my IPhone when it was released. No phone calls from unknown epidemiologists yet. I get tested every 2 weeks, so I view the app not as added protection but added information. I’d like to know if someone in physical proximity tested positive. I assume they would too.

911 Rod

I wonder what the government paid for this little gem?

BioBanker

Why all the hate for the app? Similar have been used around the world and have been linked to rapidly tracing down potential contacts before they too have an opportunity to spread. Is that not a good thing? Wouldn’t you want to know if you crossed paths with someone who tested positive before you visit your parents or do you want to wait until your symptoms show up, or not, before you become contagious.

The more people who use it the better FOR ALL OF US. It’s not active in BC yet but I hope that changes soon. Maybe people won’t have current phones and maybe some people will bitch about software updates but this virus would be stopped in its tracks if people stopped spreading it. Hopefully people knowing that they might be contagious will help with that?

theiceman

i don't think its as much hate for the app , as it is for the people responsible for administering it and acting on the data it provides