As TheMayor.EU reported on previous occasions, Slovenia has been working on its own version of Germany’s coronavirus contact-tracing app. After the contract was awarded to a local company called RSTEAM, development proceeded rapidly, and the app is now being trialled by members of the country’s administration.
As per the terms of the contract, the app has been uploaded to the GooglePlay and the App Store since Saturday and will become available for download by mid-August. Until then, members of the Ministry of Public Administration in Slovenia and the National Institute of Public Health will be testing its functions and its functionality.
Solving many of the problems encountered by other similar apps
The Slovenian variant of a coronavirus contact-tracing app is called “OstaniZdrav” (“StayWell” in English). It is based, by design, on Germany’s wildly successful and widely-embraced tracking app – the Corona Warn App. Its goal is to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the population and to allow authorities to quickly find people who are sick and to limit their exposure to others – it will also allow for those who have been in contact with someone who turned out to be sick, to self-quarantine.
Using “OstaniZdrav” is meant to be as straightforward as possible and to not require any special skills whatsoever. After downloading, the app itself will instruct users how to proceed and will guide them on every step of the way.
If a user turns out to be infected, he will be allowed to enter a 10-digit code into the app, that was previously given to him by an epidemiologist, signalling to other users who have been in contact with him.
The main problem that’s been solved by the Slovenian developers is the issue of privacy. The app will not track any person’s geolocation and will not gather any form of invasive data. Furthermore, if someone ends up being sick and signalling his contacts through the app, his identity will not be revealed, thereby protecting his privacy entirely.
Source: TheMayor.EU
