'Protect Scotland' COVID-19 Exposure Notification app now works in England, Wales
Mike PetersonCredit: Scotland
Scotland has updated its coronavirus exposure notification app to be interoperable with platforms in England and Wales, following a similar update that enabled compatibility with apps in Jersey and Northern Ireland.
The Protect Scotland app launched to the public in September in an effort to track and mitigate the spread of coronavirus. At the time, however, it only worked within Scotland's borders.
On Wednesday, the Scottish government announced that it has developed a "federated server" that allows all COVID-19 contact tracing apps to work together. That includes existing apps in the U.K., Crown Dependencies, and Gibraltar, with interoperability added in phases.
"From today, the second phase of this interoperability means that Protect Scotland will continue working when people are required to travel for essential reasons to England, Wales and Gibraltar," the government said.
Previously, on Oct. 28, Protect Scotland became interoperable with apps in Northern Ireland and Jersey. Phase three will include similar apps from other countries and regions.
The Scottish government said that more than 1.5 million people have downloaded Protect Scotland since its launch, and more than 13,000 have received an exposure notification.
Like other apps based on the Apple-Google Exposure Notification framework, Protect Scotland operates using Bluetooth in the background and exchanges anonymous identifiers to track potential COVID-19 exposure. No data is stored on central servers, and personally identifiable information isn't collected.
William Gallagher
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
