COVID-19 app’s practicality, privacy draw concerns
Commentators from across the political spectrum are raising concerns with Abtracetogether, Alberta’s new app meant to aid in COVID-19 contact tracing.
One potential problem with the smartphone app is that IOS users — those who download the app on an iphone, ipad or ipod Touch — will have to leave the app running in the foreground of their device, meaning it has to be visibly open on their screen. That means IOS users will have to keep their phone unlocked and set to the Abtracetogether app for it to be effective.
The problem only exists on IOS — on Android devices, the app can run in the background. According to a 2019 Bloomberg report, 53 per cent of Canadian smartphones run IOS.
“If you switch apps, it stops working, and that’s a pretty major flaw because, just from a practical sense, who is actually going to be able to use that app?” said Peter Mccaffrey, president of the Alberta Institute, a think-tank with libertarian leanings.
“And to be blunt, anyone who is able to manage with those constraints is probably somebody who is being very careful about social distancing anyway because they’re being very conscientious about this in the first place.”
According to Alberta Health, IOS users are notified that keeping their app on in the foreground is a requirement, and are given guidance on how to conserve battery power during use.
The voluntary Abtracetogether app works by using Bluetooth to detect when two phones using the app are within two metres of each other, particularly targeting close contact for more than 15 minutes over a 24-hour period.
If a user tests positive for
COVID-19, Alberta Health Services asks for permission to use the data recorded on the app to accelerate contact-tracing measures, which typically rely on interviews with infected patients.
Heather Sweet, NDP critic for democracy and ethics, said the Opposition party supports the intent of the app but has questions about privacy and usability.
“We know this was rolled out very quickly and the privacy commissioner has not come back with her final recommendations,” Sweet said.
“When you’re keeping your device open at all times when you’re using it, the question becomes, how is that data being stored if you’re collected it from somebody else and how is it being used?”
The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta sent a number of questions to the province for clarification about the app’s privacy impact assessment, and Alberta Health says a summary of that impact will be made available online once the privacy commissioner accepts it.
The app was developed by Deloitte and was built off of source code from a similar app released by the Singapore government. It cost $625,000, a figure Mccaffrey says is a cause for concern.
“It seems like a very high cost for an app that has already been developed,” he said. “I don’t think just because we’re in an emergency we should ignore the cost of government services and programs.”
Alberta Health spokeswoman Zoe Cooper said a breakdown of costs for developing the app wasn’t available Saturday but said the province considers the cost worthwhile.
“We’re confident that the value of this app far outweighs any development cost, as manual contact tracing is resource-intensive,” Cooper said. “The app will complement the work of health-care workers and drastically speed up the current manual tracing process. This means Albertans will be contacted more quickly if they are at risk, potentially saving costs in other areas.”
The app attracted about 60,000 registrations in the first 24 hours after its launch Friday afternoon.
Cooper says that the more Albertans who download the app, the better the province can combat the disease and move toward a reopening.
Sweet said she thinks the app is “one tool in the tool box” and that other measures, including manual contact tracing, need to be maintained.
“We need to encourage Albertans to still follow the chief medical officer’s recommendations around social distancing,” she said.
OTTAWA • An Ottawa biotech company is voluntarily recalling a rapid test for COVID-19 after Health Canada expressed concern about its effectiveness, dealing a setback to expanded testing in the country.
Spartan Bioscience said Sunday that the concerns centre around the proprietary swab used in the test, but that the Health Canada report out Friday did not raise concerns about the accuracy of the test reagents and portable analyzer device.
The company said it would recall the 5,500 tests shipped nationally and work on additional clinical studies to assess the sampling method and swab.
“Spartan will be working as quickly as possible to address the concerns and bring its test to market,” the company said in a statement.
Spartan declined an interview request.
Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Sunday at a news conference that real-world trials of the test so far haven’t delivered necessary outcomes.
“While the Spartan system, or the device, performed very well in a laboratory setting, and along the specifications the manufacturer had provided, it was in the real-life setting, in the clinical setting, where it didn’t perform well.”
Tam said the recall won’t affect the national testing goal of 60,000 people a day, since that figure is based on systems already in use, but that it could affect the speed of further test increases and especially affect rural communities where local in-clinic tests would be especially useful.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government has moved to accelerate approvals for testing and other potentially life-saving measures, but also needs to be ready to respond quickly to new information.
“That is why we are being as nimble as we possibly can to respond to what’s working, to what perhaps isn’t working as well as we hoped that it would, and we will always need to adjust every step of the way as new information comes in on a daily basis through this pandemic, through this crisis.”
Health Canada says the product is restricted to research use only until adequate evidence of clinical performance can be provided.
The federal government announced it had approved the hand-held DNA analyzer on April 13.
The need for greater testing is widely acknowledged as key to understanding the true scope of COVID-19 infection in Canada, and how best to deploy suppression strategies.
Canada was hoping to send the devices to remote and Indigenous communities where access and timely results have been hindered by distance and limited resources.