The application (app) that tracks individuals infected with the new coronavirus, as well as their contacts, was launched over in Germany yesterday, and will soon be available for Croatian citizens.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 18th of June, 2020, there are now newly infected people within Croatian borders and another forty people have been placed in self-isolation. According to the announcements of the ruling party, we should have had this information and similar data available to us in the palms of our hands.
Specifically, this sort of information was supposed to be made available to Croatia within the application developed by APIS. More than a month has passed since that particular announcement.
As stated, the application that tracks individuals infected with the new coronavirus and their contacts was launched in Germany yesterday, and it will soon also be made available to Croatian citizens. They have been working on its production in APIS for the last month.
“We’re still waiting for the approval of both Google and Apple in terms of the Ministry of Health as the holder of this application, and we expect that everything will be done in July,” said Sasa Bilic, CEO of APIS IT for RTL Danas (Today).
The coronavirus tracking application does not reveal a person’s identity.
When people get in touch, the app exchanges so-called keys or identifiers via Bluetooth on their mobile phones. If someone later becomes infected with the new coronavirus, with their voluntary consent, that information is stored and the app alerts their close contacts about the presence of the disease.
Once a day, the application downloads a list of ”infected keys”.
In order to exchange these anonymous keys, the users of the application will have to be at least two metres away from each other and spend at least fifteen minutes in contact.
“Countries are moving towards solutions that are of course voluntary, which aren’t related to determining geolocations, but which use bluetooth technology. As far as we’re concerned, at the moment, we’re primarily focused on the protection of our citizens, and on the protection of tourists who come to Croatia,” said the Minister of the Interior, Davor Bozinovic.
There is an idea in place to exchange information with other countries, including Germany, where the application has been downloaded six and a half million times in just 24 hours.
After the keys are exchanged between Germany and Croatia, the user who was in Croatia or the Croat who was in Germany, will be notified that he was in contact with an infected person,” said Marin Katic, Head of the Web and Mobile Applications Development Department of APIS IT.
In addition to the fact that the use of this coronavirus tracking application is voluntary and free, it can be turned off and uninstalled at any time.
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