Singapore move 'a validation' of NZ's CovidCard approach, says developer
Tuesday, 15 September 2020
A fortnight after entrepreneur Sam Morgan blasted the Health Ministry for failing to grasp the potential of ‘CovidCards’, Singapore has begun issuing similar contact tracing devices to all residents who want them.
Like CovidCards, Singapore’s TraceTogether tokens exchange Bluetooth signals with other such tokens, providing a record of who people have been in close contact with – and for how long – if they are diagnosed with Covid-19.
However, there are several differences in Singapore’s implementation of the technology.
Its TraceTogether tokens are designed to be interoperable with smartphones that have downloaded a Bluetooth app and which can serve instead as the proximity device.
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They are larger than CovidCards – a bit smaller but thicker than a pack of playing cards – and the intention is they will be carried in a pocket or a bag, while CovidCards are designed to be worn as a lanyard.
Hamilton wireless technology expert Dean Armstrong, who developed the CovidCard, said Singapore’s decision was “a strong validation” of the token-based approach to improving contact tracing.
“Singapore led the world in the smartphone-based approach and has since deprioritised it in favour of this,” he said.
But he believed the New Zealand-designed CovidCards were better.
“We’ve got a much smaller form factor and a longer battery life.”
The battery on TraceTogether tokens is expected to last six months.
Singapore’s approach of letting people use either a dedicated token or a smartphone was an interesting one, he said.
”You need to be prepared to sacrifice on accuracy to achieve that.
“From a technical perspective we could potentially do the same with a CovidCard,” he said.
“But you need to be very careful that you don’t end up diluting the overall impact of the system, or compromise the performance to the point where it doesn’t achieve what you need in helping to manage the pandemic.”
CovidCard supporter and Animation Research founder Ian Taylor said the CovidCard had been designed to offer better privacy protection than smartphone-based alternatives.
That was in part because they were not open to the internet so could only be read once physically handed over to contact tracers.
CovidCards have been tested in a trial that was overseen by Otago University’s Department of Public Health in Wellington, on behalf of the Department of Internal Affairs.
Government Digital Services Minister Kris Faafoi has said they had been shown to work “in a controlled environment”.
Morgan has indicated he is unwilling to dedicate more time to the project because he did not believe it was being taken seriously by Ministry of Health officials.
However, there is no commercial entity behind the proposal and the Government has signalled it will carry on with a further trial of CovidCards in Rotorua to test people’s willingness to wear them, and with a trial by staff and residents of a managed isolation facility.
Taylor believed there continued to be some confusion among officials about the technology and the ways in which it would assist manual contact tracing.
Health Ministry deputy director-general Shayne Hunter has not been available for interview.
Neither CovidCards nor TraceTogether need to record people’s location.
But in Singapore, residents will need to have either the TraceTogether token or the app on their smartphone to enter many venues.
The nature of proximity-based contact tracing – whether on smartphones or using tokens – means uptake has to be near universal for it to be most effective.