Your views

‘A good newspaper is a nation talking to itself’

I think a lot of people would like to know how careFIJI app can tell who has contacted a COVID carrier. There has been so much publicity about its usefulness, but how it works is being kept a secret. After much searching on the internet I have come up with some facts. It’s all about mobile phones talking to each other without you knowing it!

■U■dersta■di■g Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short range communication system using UHF radio waves in the ISM bands, from 2.402 GHz to 2.48GHz.

The range of Bluetooth depends on its class and there are three main classes of Bluetooth.

Class 1: transmits at 100 mW with a range of 100 meters.

Class 2: Most Bluetooth devices operate within this class that transmits at 2.5 mW with a maximum range of 10 meters.

Class 3: transmits with 1 mW at a range of less than 10 meters.

■careFIJI uses Bluetooth signals.

It relies on emitting shortrange (10m) Bluetooth signals and recording the signals emitted from the careFIJI

app on other people’s smartphones in order to trace who they’ve been in contact with. The careFIJI app on your smart phone is in constant communication with all other careFIJI apps nearby (<10m). The phones are “talking to each other” and recording the “conversation”.

The signals from your phone contain random strings of numbers that other nearby smart phones can detect and store. And the careFIJI app on your phone does the same, automatically and all the time.

The data recorded by careFIJI can be downloaded and traced back to your phone number, but not to your name.

So the App offers a way to find people who may have been in contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19.

■How does the contact tracing work

If at some time you have a positive diagnosis of COVID-19, you would be asked (voluntarily) to download your log of signals from other smart phones with the careFIJI App.

Those signals can tell the MHMS how long the owners were near you as an infected person and the approximate distance. Those smart phone owners can then be contacted through the phone number provided when installing the careFIJI app.

■How is our privacy protected?

The App doesn’t need your exact location to determine whether you’ve been in close contact with someone who has recently tested positive for COVID-19.

To protect the identity of

careFIJI app users, the only personal information captured is your mobile number. The mobile number is required to activate the

careFIJI app and to enable the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) officials to call you in order to conduct contact tracing.

All contact tracing information is encrypted, without identifying you, and then stored on your phone. It can only ever be accessed by the MHMS if you give your consent and send it from your phone.