UC Berkeley pilots smartphone alert contact tracing system – SFBay

A pilot program that can present Covid-19 contact tracing to members of the College of California at Berkeley group by way of smartphone might go statewide, college officers stated Thursday.

UC Berkeley group members are being requested to enroll Monday when this system goes reside. It alerts them if they’ve been uncovered to the coronavirus and it’s meant to assist gradual the unfold of the virus.

This system launched at UC San Diego and UC San Francisco in September and has been invaluable on these campuses.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and Government Vice Chancellor and Provost A. Paul Alivisatos stated in a press release:

“California COVID Notify is a privacy-first strategy to utilizing smartphones to provide you with a warning when you’ve got been uncovered to Covid-19.”

The 2 officers added:

“It augments conventional contact tracing efforts and makes it potential to succeed in unknown contacts.”

Different UC campuses in increasing the pilot will be part of UC Berkeley, and if the pilot is profitable it could be rolled out statewide.

This system doesn’t acquire location info and all elements of an individual’s participation are nameless, Christ and Alivisatos stated.

They stated:

“No personally identifiable info is used or saved.”

They wish to guarantee college students they won’t be disciplined due to any contact tracing effort. Reasonably the well being and security of the campus group comes first.

For individuals with an iPhone, downloading the most recent iOS 14.2 replace is important to take part. For Android customers, nothing must be accomplished to take part, in response to college officers.

Campus group members are requested to search for a WarnMe alert on Monday with enrollment info.