CA Notify, a new digital contact-tracing tool, will be made available to all Californians starting Dec. 10. The tool was developed in partnership with Google and Apple, and piloted with the help of the University California, San Diego and the University of California, San Francisco.
Initially launched at UC San Diego, the CA Notify pilot was subsequently expanded at UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Riverside. UC San Diego experienced an adoption rate of more than 50 percent of on-campus staff and employees in less than a week. More than 50 COVID-19 exposure notifications have already been anonymously triggered to help protect the campus community, officials at UC San Diego said.
Starting Thursday, California residents can enable CA Notify in their iPhone settings or on Android phones by downloading the CA notify app from the Google Play Store. When the app is downloaded, users can opt in to receive COVID-19 notifications informing them if they have been exposed to someone who has tested positive for the virus. State officials contend that the digital tool protects privacy and security, and does not collect device location to detect exposure and does not share a user’s identity.
When individuals voluntarily activate CA Notify, the tool uses Bluetooth technology to exchange random codes between phones without revealing the user’s identity or location. If a CA Notify user tests positive for COVID-19, they will receive a verification code to plug into the app, if they choose. Any other CA Notify users who have been within 6 feet for 15 minutes or more of the COVID-19 positive individual will get an anonymous notification of possible exposure, explained officials from California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.
CA Notify will accelerate how quickly people get notified of a possible COVID-19 exposure, giving people the information they need to make responsible decisions around quarantine and testing, officials said. Users who have tested positive for COVID-19 will get a text from the California Department of Public Health with a code which they can enter into CA Notify triggering an alert to phones of people who may have been exposed in the previous 14 days.
“Throughout this pandemic we have tapped California’s talent pool to fight this virus and that includes working with tech innovators like Apple and Google,” Gov. Newsom said in a statement. “CA Notify will help slow the spread by alerting those who opt in to receive an alert if they’ve come into contact with someone who has tested positive. The process is private, anonymous and secure, and is one of the many tools in the state’s data-driven approach to help reduce the spread.”
Back in April, Apple and Google announced a joint effort around contact tracing leveraging Bluetooth technology. As of late-November, only a handful of U.S. states had contact tracing options for iOS and Android, although several more deployments could be in the works. California has now become the largest state to join the Apple-Google contact-tracing initiative thus far.
“Imagine your phone being able to tell you that you’ve been exposed to COVID-19 — or better yet — that you can anonymously alert others, even strangers, of a potential exposure so they can get tested,” said Christopher Longhurst, M.D., chief information officer and professor of biomedical informatics and pediatrics, UC San Diego Health. “This free and reliable smartphone technology can help all Californians. As we enter a new, and hopefully final, surge in the pandemic, now more than ever is the time to put every possible tool to use to slow the spread of the virus.”
