The Government is warning an app designed to track the spread of Covid-19 will not be a “silver bullet”.
The TraceTogether app was developed in Singapore and is currently being investigated by the Government as a potential monitoring tool to help stop the spread of Covid-19.
“We have been very clear on from the beginning that no tracking app provides a silver bullet,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.
It’s believed the app, when installed on a phone, does not collect location data, but instead uses bluetooth technology to record close contacts of the phone’s user.
If two people who are in close contact with each other both have the app installed, both phones will store the information received from the app.
Kiwi Simon Gordon moved to Singapore three years ago. More than 2500 positive cases of coronavirus have been reported in Singapore.
He says he’s “not too concerned” about the app encroaching on his privacy.
“I think if there was someone who had some bad intentions, they could do something nasty with it," Mr Gordon said.
The data, released to officials if the phone’s user tests positive for coronavirus, then helps paint a picture of who they may have spread the illness to. However, the app must remain open in order to track users.
The New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties' Thomas Beagle is worried about privacy concerns involved with the app, however.
"They should put some safeguards around it, like, for example, saying that particular tracking and tracing can only be used for tracking the Covid-19, that it will expire at some point - that people can actually choose to opt in or out,” Mr Beagle said.
The Ministry of Health hopes to have a tracking app operational by mid-May.
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