The Ukrainian team has created an application to combat coronavirus. But without state support it is practically impossible to develop it
Oleksandr Goncharov, head of the Kyiv office of Y-Media, told how the company developed the Contact Tracker mobile application to combat the COVID-19 epidemic, but it has little chance of flying up without state support.
Since the spread of COVID-19 in Europe and North America, many countries have begun to invest large sums to combat COVID-19. One way to combat this was to prevent the spread of the virus by tracking possible infected people using apps.
On March 20, 3 days after the quarantine was announced, our development team had the idea to create a mobile application to track contacts of infected people. We understood that a private company would not be able to access information about users moving by GPS, so we decided to use Bluetooth and Beacon to track contacts.
The application works as follows:
- The user enters their data and launches the application on their smartphone
- The Contact Tracker application using Bluetooth takes into account the data of other users at a distance of three meters, who also have this application installed.
- The user can see the number of people with whom he has contacted.
- If one of the user’s contacts was infected with COVID-19, the user will receive a notification.
The idea was to make the application as accurate and anonymous as possible. Therefore, we take into account contacts only at a distance of three meters and do not show the names and surnames of other users from the contact list.
TERMS AND TEAM
4 days have passed from the idea to the implementation of the MVP version. On March 20, when we started development, harsh measures to restrict the movement of people had not yet been taken, and we understood that the problem of the spread of infection was extremely urgent.
Our team was attended by 2 developers, 2 designers, 2 QA PM engineers and a business analyst. And on March 24, the MVP version of the Android application was uploaded to Google Play. April 3, we downloaded the iOS version on the App Store.
THE MAIN PROBLEM — BULK APPLICATION INSTALLATION
Even at the stage of discussing ideas, we understood that our application can fulfill its function only if a large percentage of the population uses it, otherwise we will not be able to get enough data. For this, the application should be implemented by structures that are authorized to combat the pandemic: and these are all the same state organizations.
As a result, we are faced with the rules of Google Play and the App Store. Contact Tracker is currently unavailable for iOS, and the review on Google Play has been going on for quite some time. The reason for this is the prevention of speculation around the coronavirus, as well as fraudulent attempts to fraudulently collect to “fight” the pandemic. Google Play and AppStore block all attempts to layout an application related to COVID-19. Exceptions are accounts of universally recognized institutions, such as: state organizations, hospitals, insurance companies, non-state companies or universities.
WHAT APPLICATIONS DOES UKRAINE AND OTHER COUNTRIES USE
At the time of application development, many countries launched their versions of mobile applications.
- The Israeli application Hamagen, released on March 23, monitors the movement of users and informs them if infected people were in the places where they were located at the same time,
- The application from Singapore Trace together, like ours, uses Bluetooth technology to track contacts,
- According to Deutsche Welle, Germany is also developing an application that will use Bluetooth, but the application has not yet been released. In the Netherlands, it is also planned to launch an application with Bluetooth technology.
- At the moment, in Ukraine, within the framework of the “Act at home” application, functionality has been implemented that will monitor the observance of isolation, and work is also underway to prevent dangerous contacts using the QR code system. But, unfortunately, the QR-code system requires a user’s action every time he sees a QR-code, which is not always convenient.
