With the development of the epidemic, more and more people are discussing the current implementation of the “short message real linkage system”. The Central Epidemic Command Center stated today (12th) that as the epidemic prevention enters the “new Taiwan model” based on the principles of normal life, active epidemic prevention, and steady opening up, it will strengthen the In order to optimize people’s independent epidemic prevention, improve the efficiency of epidemic investigation, and identify possible risk cases, the public is encouraged to download the optimized “Taiwan Social Distancing APP”. The APP will be compatible with the current SMS physical contact system. When entering the venue, people only need to show the APP screen and are not required to use other physical contact measures.
The function of “Taiwan Social Distancing APP” has been further optimized. From now on, showing the APP screen will eliminate the need for other physical distancing measures.
The currently used “SMS Joint System” was launched on May 19, 2021. The purpose is to facilitate the public and businesses to implement joint control measures, reduce the contact with paper records, and help epidemic investigators understand the history of case-related activities and list of contacts. This system does not require membership or filling in any personal information. The information returned to the telecommunications company is only three pieces of information: “mobile phone number”, “current time” and “location code”. This information is already available to the telecommunications company originally used by the public. It is the smallest range of personal information provided and will only be retained for 28 days before being destroyed. Only when the government needs to investigate the epidemic, will it access this information and find out where the traces are.
The “Taiwan Social Distancing APP” was developed by the Department of Disease Control and Prevention of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Information Security Office of the Executive Yuan, and Taiwan AI Labs. It uses the Bluetooth signal strength of handheld devices to detect the distance and time of contact between users, and uses technology to assist in recording their contact history in the past 14 days. The relevant contact data is only stored on the personal handheld device for 14 days and will not be uploaded to any cloud service. When a user is notified that they are a confirmed case, the health unit can upload data after obtaining the consent of the confirmed case. The App will proactively notify those who have been in contact with the person in the past 14 days (for example, those who have been in contact with the confirmed case within 2 meters for more than 2 minutes) and a warning screen will appear to remind the user to pay attention to the recent physical condition.
However, after the “Taiwan Social Distancing APP” was launched, the effectiveness of the reminder was questioned, so the downloads and usage were not as expected. With the recent discussion of the “SMS real contact system”, the Central Epidemic Command Center believes that the “Taiwan Social Distancing APP” is also a great tool for technological epidemic prevention, and it can notify relevant contacts of confirmed cases more quickly and accurately than the current real contact system. Therefore, in addition to optimizing the “Taiwan Social Distancing APP”, it has also decided that this APP will be used in conjunction with the current SMS real contact system, encouraging the public to install and use it. People only need to show the APP screen when entering the venue, and are not required to use other real contact measures, providing a more convenient way of independent epidemic prevention.
The optimized “Taiwan Social Distancing APP” also remains available for download and installation, and does not require registration or login information. The APP functional interface has been slightly adjusted, including the “Home Page Dynamic Screen” and “Confirmed Persons Upload Contact Information”. The “Home Page Dynamic Screen” will have a real-time dynamic time limit display to facilitate users to confirm whether the APP is operating normally.
In the upper left corner, there is a scanning function for “SMS real connection system”, which allows you to scan the real connection SMS code through the APP.
The menu in the upper right corner has multiple setting functions, including data permission control, daily contact status, and other functions that can be set to “exposure notification service” and “risk-free notification”.
As for “confirmed people upload contact information”, the health unit will notify the confirmed people to operate the APP to obtain the verification code, and then the system will upload their random ID and activity area information. The user’s APP will generate a random ID every 15 minutes and use Bluetooth signals to record the random IDs that have been contacted. The APP compares the random IDs uploaded by the confirmed cases every day. The general public only needs to turn on the Bluetooth function. If the matching is found to have been in contact with the confirmed cases, the APP will issue a warning notification to remind the user, achieving the effect of a real connection notification.
In addition, people using Android phones may receive a notification from Google Play Services, indicating that the COVID-19 patient contact notification function is now available. If they choose to continue, they will be linked to the “Taiwan Social Distancing APP” store page, which can be installed and used directly.
The command center has stated that the “Taiwan Social Distancing APP” will be used in conjunction with the current SMS physical contact system. When entering the venue, people only need to show the APP screen and do not need to use other physical contact control measures. This will provide an additional choice for epidemic prevention entry.
“Taiwan Social Distancing APP” Google Play App
“Taiwan Social Distancing APP” App Store page
Source: KOCPC Chinese