Travelers to Install Trace Ekee for Community Safety
Sunday 14th of June 2020
Travelers to Install Trace Ekee for Community Safety
Trace Ekee is an app developed to support the efforts to mitigate community spread of COVID-19 in the Maldives through community-driven detailed contact tracing. As the Maldives opens its borders on July, all tourists entering the destination are being requested by various resorts to download the app.
By using Bluetooth signals to detect encounters with other TraceEkee users, the app stores data in encrypted form on your phone. It logs the nearby phone’s identifier, model, signal strength and time. All TraceEkee users are represented by a random, changing, encrypted identifier. If you had close contact with a COVID-19 case, the Health Protection Agency will seek and need your actioned consent to upload your encounter data for contact tracing analysis.
The app helps Health Protection Agency find close contacts of the positive cases more quickly to provide guidance and necessary care at the earliest. TraceEkee will also keep you up to date on new developments and updates on COVID-19 in the Maldives and guide you on ways to protect yourself.
On 29th April, technologist Jawish Hameed announced the development of the app on Twitter, acknowledging the team that helped develop it. He also said that it is based on the system used and open-sourced by Singapore. It does not log your exact location, only proximity to other users, and data is stored encrypted. Data is only sent to HPA when you explicitly authorize and choose to send it. More people using means higher effectivity. So keep yourself and others safe by downloading this app.