Older phone? Forget about COVID-19 app

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This article was published 22/11/2020 (1938 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadians who have older cellphones are out of luck when it comes to using the federal app designed to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Changes are coming to Canada’s COVID Alert app, but it won’t be made compatible with devices that are more than five years old, Health Canada confirmed Friday.

The federal agency was in talks with tech giants Apple and Google to see about releasing an app update that would work on older devices while maintaining all of the app’s privacy safeguards, but that’s not going to happen, said Lucie Vignola, director general of Health Canada’s COVID-19 task force.

The app was built using frameworks from Apple and Google so that it works on newer iPhone and Android devices. It uses Bluetooth to alert users when they’ve come into contact with someone who’s tested positive for COVID-19 over the previous two weeks. It doesn’t use any geo-location data, so users remain anonymous. That level of privacy protection can’t be guaranteed on older phones, Vignola said.

“Given the risk of affecting the security and privacy of COVID Alert, we don’t have any plans at the moment to look at making it compatible or having them (Google and Apple) do the framework (to make the app compatible) with older devices,” Vignola said Friday.

Canadians who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 need an access code to log in and report their diagnosis on the app. The app then alerts users nearby in an effort to encourage people to self-isolate early and control the spread of the virus. But as the Free Press reported last week, only four per cent of Manitobans who tested positive for COVID-19 were given one-time codes to input on the app since it became functional in the province Oct. 1. An even smaller proportion of COVID-positive Manitobans actually used the codes in the app. Some users who previously spoke to the Free Press said they had to ask public-health nurses for the one-time keys, and others reported delays in receiving them.

When asked why so few Manitobans have used the app to report their COVID-19 diagnosis, a provincial spokeswoman said the government suspects the “biggest contributor” to the low number of keys provided is that most Manitobans who’ve tested positive aren’t using the app. In the statement this week, the province said it’s possible that public-health officials sometimes forget to offer the one-time key while they’re informing individuals they’ve tested positive, but the government is reminding them to do so, and is encouraging Manitobans to ask for a code if they aren’t offered one.

Delmar Giesbrecht, 55, was among the four per cent. He found out he had COVID-19 four days after he got tested in early November. A day after he got the results online, a public-health nurse called him. During the call, she asked him if he had the COVID Alert app and offered him the code.

“For me, everything worked the way it was supposed to,” he said.

More than 5.3 million Canadians have downloaded the app, and roughly 5,400 one-time access codes have been generated for those who tested positive. Vignola said she is pleased with those numbers.

Meanwhile, she said Health Canada is working with provinces to make sure front-line workers know about the app and how to distribute codes. They’re also fine-tuning the app by allowing COVID-positive Canadians to pinpoint the date their symptoms started, for more accurate notifications to others. An update is on the way for health-care workers, so they can turn off the app while they’re in contact with COVID-19-positive patients at work, but still use the Bluetooth function and be alerted about possible cases of the virus outside of work.

“Nothing’s a silver bullet. The COVID Alert app is another tool in the toolbox,” Vignola said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay