Canadian technology firms Shopify Inc (TSX:SHOP) and Blackberry Ltd. (TSX:BB) have developed a coronavirus contact tracing app.
The app is set to be launched nationally after being introduced in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, on July 2. Test-and-trace programs have emerged as an important tool to identify and contain the spread of the coronavirus, becoming more urgent as Canadian provinces gradually reopen their economies after three months of lockdown.
The app, called "COVID Alert," uses Bluetooth connections to swap randomly generated codes with users in a geographic vicinity. Users who have tested positive for COVID-19 self-report their status within the app, using an eight-digit number from health officials to verify their positive result. The app then alerts other users who encountered them.
The app was developed by Shopify. It will undergo a security review by Blackberry. On Thursday, Britain said it was switching to the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) model for its COVID-19 test-and-trace app after a locally developed system did not work properly on Apple’s iPhone.
