The Estonian coronavirus exposure notification application “HOIA” was introduced today (August 20) and can now be downloaded. ERR News spoke with Priit Tohver, a social services and innovation advisor at the Ministry of Social Affairs, to find out what the app does and how it can be used.
“HOIA” created in voluntary cooperation between the Ministry of Social Affairs (Sotsiaalministeerium), the Health and Welfare Information Systems Centre (Tervise ja Heaolu Infos-steemide Keskus) and 12 Estonian companies: Cybernetica, Fujitsu Estonia, Guardtime, Icefire, Iglu Mobi, Lab, Mooncascade, Velvet, FOB Solutions, Heisi IT
The purpose of the flexible request, which is optional and not mandatory, is to inform the close contacts of other people inflamed by the coronavirus and provide them with initial commands on how to proceed. It aims to restrict the spread of coronavirus.
In this way, the user may temporarily notice close contact with an inflamed user with COVID-19, allowing them to take steps for their own fitness and that of others.
This works because phones that use the app record Bluetooth signals from nearby phones. If the sign is close enough and long enough, an unnamed code that refers to a close touch will be stored on your phone.
It is not imaginable to identify a user based on an unnamed code.
To use the app, you want a phone with the Android or iOS operating system. To make Hoia work better, you want to use the near touch notification interface provided by Google and Apple.
Usability is limited to phones manufactured in the last five years. Android phones are suitable for all phones that have the operating formula of Android 6.0. All Apple phones that have the iOS 13.five operating formula (from iPhone 6S) are supported.
Earlier this year, when the app was first announced, Anett Numa, a speaker at the e-estonian data center, wrote that it would build on the DP-3T protocol that evolved through leading privacy experts and also complies with the touch of Apple and Google. Tracking API.
Estonia has selected a “privacy way” to search for contacts, a key of which is the provision of decentralization that underlies several Estonian electronic status responses, he wrote.
In this system, which is designed to adhere to the recent recommendations of the EDPB, no entity will be able to purchase all tracking knowledge and use it for purposes other than touch search.
“HOIA” can be downloaded from Google Play and App Store. Find out about the site.
Questions and with Priit Tohver
ERR News: Can you tell me what this app does?
Priit Tohver: this is a touch tracking app, called exposure notification app.
The concept is that you are notified if you have been exposed to COVID-19 or, conversely, if you have had COVID-19 yourself, this is a way to anonymously inform your contacts about an exposure.
Who can use it?
It is open to everyone, so anyone can download it, it is not limited to Estonians. It is available in Estonian, Russian and English.
There is no formal age limit, at least in our appearance; However, young people under the age of thirteen can’t check their own infection in the app lately, which we expect in long-term iterations so that parents can do it for them. But nothing prevents young people from using the app to receive a notification.
What do you do if you get a notification?
Basically, the app gives them instructions. They’ll have to stay home for a while and keep an eye on their health. If you have symptoms, call a doctor in the family circle, they will also be provided with a number they can call to ask more questions or to inform the Estonian Health Council of this close contact.
If you have obtained a positive diagnosis of COVID, how do you tell the app?
Therefore, the first mechanism we have put in place is the Estonian patient portal, which is an essential component of Estonia’s state electronic infrastructure, for the application to direct you to the patient portal that verifies your diagnosis for you, then confirms or denies the fact of your infection to the application.
This allows the app to verify who is inflamed and who is not, and then notifies others who have contacted that person.
Would you inspire other people who stop in Estonia to download this app as well?
Yes. At EU level, we are running a style of interoperability that would allow you to use the app from any country when you travel, however, at this time we propose to download the app if you are visiting Estonia.
If you leave the country and are with COVID-19, what is the procedure?
So that’s the biggest obstacle right now. That’s why we are developing a style of interoperability at EU level. Currently, if you come to Estonia and download the app, you go home, so you have no way to notify Estonia because you have no way of verifying the diagnosis in the Estonian formula because your diagnosis has been made elsewhere.
In the future, the test at EU point would create a cross-country exchange mechanism, so if you report your infection to your own country’s application, that notification will be shared with the countries you have visited.
Editor’s Note: HoIA will also remain installed for 14 days after your departure from Estonia as you can still get a touch notification. If so, tap the Estonian Health Council.
Estonia and Finland already have percentage fitness data, would Finland be one of the first countries with which HOIA could only percentage data?
We have a percentage of knowledge with Finland, but in fact, in this case, we can seek intelligent and early collaboration with a lot of countries. Therefore, any country that uses the Google and Apple API, which is necessarily a decentralized contract tracking system, can become interoperable only with this exchange mechanism.
I believe that there are about thirteen countries in the EU with programmes that use the API and will be the first to work with. I know that Finland is also moving in this direction and will be presented at the end of August.
And this app doesn’t buy your data, is it correct?
The application processes or saves nonpublic data.
If a certain amount of data, for example, random identifiers that are exchanged between phones, will be stored on the phone for 14 days, subject to your phone’s operating formula and privacy policy.
But the application also provides a mechanism to delete all this data, so it depends on the user.
How about eliminating fears of privacy?
When you download the app, I suggest you read the privacy policy explaining everything, we also inspire others to stop at our online page that will be activated when the app is published.
We don’t need users to just [what] the government [says] about the app, so we work with personal corporations when we create this app, adding cybersecurity corporations that have also done their own research that will be done publicly.
In addition, we have conducted an independent security audit, the effects of which we will also share. We will also publish the app code so that we can verify any considerations they may have.
Do some other people want to use this app to make it effective?
The more people use it, the more effective it will be. However, we do not believe in a threshold, so to speak, each and every user counts. If there is 10% absorption, it is helping to restrict the spread, because the application is not the only solution on which we depend and build on a treasure trove of other activities to fight the infection. If other people get a notification from the app, it’s only added to this activity set, which means you don’t want to have bulk engagement because there are other mechanisms in position that help this app.
What is the procedure when running with volunteers?
It was a mass learning experience, there has been a lot of discussion in recent years about how to be more flexible as a passing government and open ourselves up to a new bureaucracy of cooperation because the classic way of working with personal corporations is a procedural trend. But, in this case, there was simply no resources or time to go through it all.
But at the same time, there was a lot of interest on the part of personal corporations looking to help us, who sought to help us succeed over the spread.
So we said it’s okay, it’s a collaboration based on volunteering and let’s take a look at the paintings in combination and they agreed, strangely, and 3 months and a part later we kept painting in combination, so we’re incredibly grateful and that has brought us a lot. delight in how to work better with personal corporations and what not to do next time.
Some other people have said that Estonia took too long to launch this app, is it vital or has it been to create a better app?
Yes, this time it definitely allowed us to create a bigger app. One of the reasons Estonia has taken longer than other countries is that we have not created an application that is simply autonomous, we have not created anything in the void. We build it on the electronic state infrastructure, which definitely adds a layer of security to the app, which is simply not imaginable with a standalone app and also takes a long time, especially when a genuine mobile app has not been developed. phones in our cyber infrastructure before.
So there’s a lot of learning on both sides. For personal companies, what are our criteria and procedural rules for the state on how to create applications. In fact, it took a long time, which some other countries didn’t have to do.
This also allows us to go through the independent security audit, which is suitable in Estonia, to go through an audit before launching any kind of knowledge service.
And we also learned from some of the reports from other countries that went through iterations about the type of settings to put in the app to cause exposure notifications. The capacity of Google and Apple has grown a lot since April, so it benefited us.
That doesn’t mean we looked for him for so long, we were looking for him to leave as soon as possible. But there were limits on the position due to the upper point of the criteria we had to meet and also because it was a voluntary organization. Therefore, it’s very difficult to pressure other people to meet strict deadlines because, you know, everyone does it with grace and time.
What comments did you receive when you took the HOIA test?
There have been many comments, especially about the language we use in usability tests. How to make the user feel more comfortable, the most important comment we receive. But I think a lot of feedback has helped us to better perceive user considerations about the app.
We just have to keep things as undeniable as possible. As soon as you create a step that requires even a minimum of technical knowledge, it prepares for failure, so we reduce it to be very undeniable.
One thing that came out of user testing is that we received questions from Android users about how to replace the language. The language of the application is the same as the language of its operational formula, so other people do not perceive that they have to replace the language of the operational formula to replace the language of the application.
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