10 Dec 2020

Covid-19 Tracer app gets Bluetooth upgrade

From Midday Report, 12:42 pm on 10 December 2020

An update to the Covid tracer app this morning means it can now record if you come into contact with other people, if users turn on the Bluetooth function.

It fulfills the promise of a hands-free, automatic contact tracing solution, which has been floating around since the pandemic began.

The Ministry of Health tells us that while most people won't need to do anything to receive the update, there will be a small number of people who will have to manually upgrade the app.

And the Ministry is asking for people to continue to manually scan QR codes when they're out and about.

Māni Dunlop spoke to Paul Spain, the chief executive of Gorilla Technology.