Italy plans to use app to trace contacts of people infected by coronavirus

‘It will be a pillar of our strategy to deal with the post-emergency phase,’ special commissioner for emergency says

Italy is testing a contact-tracing smartphone app to monitor people who test positive for coronavirus as part of efforts to lift its nationwide lockdown.

Though the government extended its lockdown until 3 May last week, it is looking at how it can loosen the restrictions it has implemented to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Italy was the original epicentre of the virus outbreak in Europe and has the world’s highest death toll from the virus, with more than 22,000 fatalities, second only to the United States.

It plans to use an app developed by tech start-up Bending Spoons, Domenico Arcuri, the government’s special commissioner for the coronavirus emergency, told state broadcaster RAI on Thursday.

“We are working to test a contact-tracing app in some Italian regions,” Mr Arcuri said, adding that the aim was to make the app available for the entire country after regional training.

“It will be a pillar of our strategy to deal with the post-emergency phase,” he said.

Smartphone apps and similar technology have been used widely in Asian countries such as Singapore and South Korea to track the contagion, but Europe has been apprehensive about adopting such methods over the potential for data abuse and privacy violations.

Last month, Italy’s Innovation Ministry launched a tender for app developers volunteering their services.

A special committee from Italy’s Innovation Ministry selected the Bending Spoons product from hundreds of proposals after it launched a tender last month for app developers volunteering their services.

The Milan-based developer, which has worked on apps ranging from fitness to video-editing tools, is part of the Pan-European Privacy Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) initiative, which has promoted a European platform to allow national contact-tracing apps to “talk” to each other across borders.

The Bending Spoons app, initially named Immuni, uses Bluetooth to record when users are in close proximity, people with knowledge of the service told Reuters.

If someone tests positive for the virus, the app would send an alert to users who they have been in contact with, suggesting they self-quarantine and test themselves for the virus.

Proponents of Bluetooth technology have said the method is a more accurate and less intrusive way to log proximity and the length of contact than location-tracking based on networks or satellites – methods used in some Asian countries.

Mr Arcuri said the app would be used voluntarily, in line with recommendations by Italy’s data protection authority and European privacy rules.

“But we hope our citizens will adopt it massively, as their support is needed to make a contact-tracing system work,” he added.

Experts have said the app would need to be downloaded by at least 60 per cent of the population to achieve so-called digital herd immunity.