The application called CoviID is primarily intended for officials to trace all possible physical contacts of already infected people with other people.
The CoviID application has the following advantages:
- It motivates people to follow good hygiene
- Health check after testing
- Negatively tested persons will be given greater freedom of movement
- Positively tested people will be monitored using Bluetooth and geolocation
Associate Professor Co-Pierre Georg, UCT’s Master’s in Financial Technology convenor, says Lockdown is effective but cannot work for a long time and is only a temporary solution.
Therefore, with their group of students created a application CoviID which will be available in the next three weeks.
“The app designers used insights from behavioural economics to create a design that would influenceusers to practise good hygiene and health habits” said co-designer Kungela Mzuku, a former student who is now an innovation developer at Standard Bank.
Rewarding will also be one of the features of CoviID
If the app detects and confirms that you have been at home for several days, you will be eligible for a discount at a partner store. The designers were inspired by the Discovery’s Vitality program.
“This will help the government to incentivise people to do the right thing without having to go into full lockdown every time there is an outbreak, which is very costly,” said Georg.
The biggest challenge was privacy, how sensitive medical information will be published and stored to prevent leakage.
“Designing this kind of app is not rocket science, and we’re not the first or only ones to do it. The thing that makes us different, however, is the fact that we’ve designed this from a privacy-first perspective,” said Georg.
The application will use Blockchain technology to ensure sufficient security. All collected data, such as infection status, is stored on the phone using SELF SOVEREIGN IDENTITY technology to ensure that data is not stored in a centralized government or private database.
Published anti-coronavirus applications fail mainly in security, such as the apps from Oxford University or the British National Health Service , so we believe that the app from the creators of South Africa will meet expectations and prevent the spread of the pandemic called Coronavirus.
Source: Marelise van der Merwe
