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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6358817" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="ireland">Ireland</keyword> launched its coronavirus contact-tracing app, <keyword id="8914169" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-tracker">COVID Tracker</keyword>, on July 7, and other countries have asked to use it as a basis for their own apps.</li><li>Business Insider spoke to the technical director at <keyword id="9622493" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nearform">NearForm</keyword>, the software company that built COVID Tracker with Ireland's health authority, to find out how they avoided the pitfalls that have plagued other contact-tracing apps.</li><li>NearForm was originally working on a centralized app that would group user data together for authorities to study, but switched to a more private, decentralized model after Google and Apple released contact-tracing tech for developers.</li></ul>Countries the world over have tried to find ways to track the spread of the coronavirus through their citizens' smartphones, with varying success. Ireland's attempt stands out.Ireland launched its contact-tracing app, COVID Tracker, on July 7, and within a week it was downloaded by around 37% of Ireland's adult population. The app garnered international attention and NearForm, the software company that built the app with Irish health authorities, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nearform-ireland-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-approached-us-states-2020-7">has been approached by other countries, and US states, to help build overseas versions</a>.Business Insider spoke to NearForm's technical director Colm Harte to find out how the software company avoided the pitfalls that have hindered contact-tracing apps in other countries, including the UK, where an national app was promised for May but is now slated for winter.NearForm never pitched itself as a government partner on <keyword id="7313056" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Contact-tracing">contact tracing</keyword> — instead, it was approached by the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) in March, Harte said."We were very keen to help, so this kind of kicked off over a weekend in mid-March. We put a team together and within the first 24 hours we went back with designs," he said. A day later, the app had a development team, and three days later, a working prototype. That prototype showed how the app would look to users, but NearForm still had to actually build the crucial contact-tracing tech.It set up a team to look at how the app could harness Bluetooth. Like many contact-tracing apps, COVID Tracker makes phones use Bluetooth to send out signals, searching for nearby phones with the app downloaded. These signals produce a log of contacts — if one user tests positive for the virus and is asked by the HSE to upload their log, others users are alerted through the app.Bluetooth was a problem, particularly with iPhones, which normally won't send Bluetooth signals if an app is running in the background. The HSE set up calls with Apple, and soon afterwards, Apple and Google announced they would release an API for contact-tracing apps — basically, a standardized framework app developers could use.The Google-Apple <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-google-covid-19-contact-tracing-goes-public-2020-5?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">"exposure notification" API was rolled out to developers on May 20</a>.<div type="image" title="Ireland Covid tracker" height="1381" width="1992" msid="77165587" hostid="261"></div>It turned the team's plans upside-down. NearForm's app was based on a centralized model, which pools user data externally so it can be examined by authorities. "There are some advantages to the centralized model, you get a lot more useful information from an epidemiological perspective," said Harte.But Apple and Google were clear: If authorities wanted to use their API, they had to build decentralized apps, where the data remains on the users' phone. This would preserve user privacy, the firms said. Harte said the Bluetooth limitations and the privacy argument made the decision to switch straightforward for the HSE. "From a technical perspective and a privacy perspective, it goes down better with the public," he said. "We'd kind of hit [a] brick wall with Bluetooth technology."Having Apple and Google shoulder some of the technical burden was a bonus. "It made a lot of sense because otherwise you were going to have to invest a lot of time and effort to try and get that better," he said. In its first two weeks, the app has already been used to detect positive cases of the virus, Fran Thompson, chief information officer at the HSE, told Business Insider in a statement. Harte said it's still too early to tell how much impact the app will have on curbing the spread of the virus, but even if it detects only a small number of cases, that's better than nothing, he said.Out of Ireland's population of 4.9 million, 25,800 people have so far tested positive for the coronavirus, of whom 1,753 are confirmed to have died, <a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200722-covid-19-sitrep-184.pdf?sfvrsn=7680210a_2">per the World Health Organization</a>."Any impact this has is beneficial, so if it breaks even a handful of transmission chains it's been of benefit," Harte said.

How Ireland built its COVID-19 contract tracing app, which is so successful that US states want to use it

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6358817" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="ireland">Ireland</keyword> launched its contact-tracing app on July 7, and within a week it had 1.3 million downloads — roughly 37% of the country's adult population.</li><li><keyword id="9622493" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nearform">NearForm</keyword>, the company which built the app for Ireland's health authority, has donated its code to an open-source project.</li><li>Other countries and US states have already asked permission to retool the app for themselves, and NearForm confirmed to Business Insider it's started work with <keyword id="106037" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</keyword> authorities.</li></ul>Ireland's COVID-19 <keyword id="9079544" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="contact-tracing-app">contact tracing app</keyword> has been so successful that officials from other countries, including the US, want to use it.Ireland's app, which launched on July 7, and is called <keyword id="8914169" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-tracker">COVID Tracker</keyword>, was developed by a software company called NearForm. It reached 1.3 million downloads in its first week, roughly 37% of people in Ireland over 16 years old.A day after the app launched, NearForm's CEO Cian Ó Maidín <a href="https://twitter.com/Cianomaidin/status/1280798182381948928">tweeted</a> the company had found "a solution for contact tracing for governments. The NearForm team can get a national contact tracing system launched in one month." On July 20, NearForm and Ireland's health authority, the Health Service Executive (HSE), <a href="https://www.nearform.com/blog/ireland-donates-contact-tracing-app-to-linux-foundation/">donated the code</a> to an open-source project called the <a href="https://www.lfph.io/">Linux Foundation Public Health Initiative</a>. Governments have taken note. "There are a number of other countries and states in the US talking to our vendor about reskinning the app and utilising that," Fran Thompson, chief information officer at the HSE, said in a statement.NearForm confirmed to Business Insider on Tuesday that Pennsylvania is one of the US states that came calling. State officials have started work with NearForm, the company said.Colm Harte, NearForm's technical director, told Business Insider that NearForm has held talks with officials in the UK, which has yet to launch a contact-tracing app it promised would roll out nationally in May. "There has been a lot of collaboration and co-operation between different countries including the UK, I have had some conversations with some of their technical teams to talk through how we set up our system, and how we've approached using the Gapple API, that sort of stuff," he said. <div type="image" title="Ireland Covid tracker" height="1381" width="1992" msid="77107247" hostid="261"></div>COVID Tracker uses the API released by Apple and Google in May (sometimes known as the Gapple API), and sends out Bluetooth signals that look for other phones with the app downloaded. These signals allow the phones to keep a record of other nearby devices — if one user tests positive for the virus, HSE asks them to upload their log, and others users are alerted through the app.While 37% is good penetration compared to contact-tracing apps in other countries, questions remain about whether the download rate will tail off, and whether the app will be effective in curbing the spread of the virus.While other countries, including the UK, have said contact-tracing apps need to reach roughly 60% of the population to be effective, NearForm and the HSE do not have a target for how many people they want to download COVID Tracker."There is no such target figure. Any impact this has is beneficial, so if breaks even a handful of transmission chains it's been of benefit," Harte told Business Insider.Thompson added that the app has "already picked up some positive cases.""Some of those were contacts that were not provided through manual contact tracing. These are people we would never have picked up."

Ireland's contact-tracing app has done so well that US states want to use it

Hello,Today in <keyword id="6354525" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="healthcare">healthcare</keyword> news: more on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-weigh-short-term-extension-federal-unemployment-benefits-2020-7">the stimulus debates happening on Capitol Hill</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/medly-raises-100-million-to-grow-prescription-delivery-footprint-2020-7">an inside look at Medly Pharmacy's latest fundraise</a>, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nearform-ireland-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-approached-us-states-2020-7">Ireland's contact-tracing app gaining traction in the US</a>. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-weigh-short-term-extension-federal-unemployment-benefits-2020-7"><div type="image" title="Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell" height="1001" width="1335" msid="77130533" hostid="261"></div></a><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-weigh-short-term-extension-federal-unemployment-benefits-2020-7">Republicans are weighing a short-term extension for federal unemployment benefits, which would avoid a lapse in ramped-up payments for over 30 million Americans</a></h3><ul><li>A $600 weekly boost to unemployment benefits is set to expire at the end of July.</li><li>GOP leaders are in discussions with the White House over whether to extend it for the short term or whether to lower the payments.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republican-release-next-coronavirus-stimulus-under-democratic-backlash-2020-7">They're rolling out an opening bid for the next coronavirus rescue package soon.</a></li></ul><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-weigh-short-term-extension-federal-unemployment-benefits-2020-7">Read the full story from Kimberly Leonard and Joseph Zeballos-Roig here&gt;&gt;</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/medly-raises-100-million-to-grow-prescription-delivery-footprint-2020-7"><div type="image" title="Medly pharmacy" height="4480" width="5973" msid="77130537" hostid="261"></div></a><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/medly-raises-100-million-to-grow-prescription-delivery-footprint-2020-7">How pharmacy startup Medly raised $100 million to take on Amazon and drug-delivering giants</a></h3><ul><li>Medly <keyword id="6379262" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Pharmacy">Pharmacy</keyword>, a drug-delivering startup, in July raised $100 million in its series B round.</li><li>That's while pharmacy startups are gaining new ground as the <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> <keyword id="43587" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="pandemic">pandemic</keyword> puts a new importance on delivery services.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/medly-raises-100-million-to-grow-prescription-delivery-footprint-2020-7">Here's how Medly intends to compete with big players like CVS Health and Amazon in the $355 billion prescription drug market.</a></li></ul><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/medly-raises-100-million-to-grow-prescription-delivery-footprint-2020-7">Read the full story from Blake Dodge here&gt;&gt; </a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nearform-ireland-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-approached-us-states-2020-7"><div type="image" title="Covid tracker app.JPG" height="2250" width="3000" msid="77130543" hostid="261"></div></a><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nearform-ireland-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-approached-us-states-2020-7">Ireland's contact-tracing app has done so well that US states want to use it</a></h3><ul><li>Ireland launched its contact-tracing app on July 7, and within a week it had 1.3 million downloads — roughly 37% of the country's adult population.</li><li>NearForm, the company that built the app for Ireland's health authority, has donated its code to an open-source project.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nearform-ireland-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-approached-us-states-2020-7">Other countries and US states have already asked permission to retool the app for themselves, and NearForm told Business Insider it's started work with Pennsylvania authorities.</a></li></ul><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nearform-ireland-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-approached-us-states-2020-7">Read the full story from Isobel Asher Hamilton here&gt;&gt;</a>More stories we're reading:<ul><li><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hims-spac/hair-loss-treatment-vendor-hims-seeks-deal-to-go-public-sources-idUSKCN24N1WZ">Hims is looking to go public via a SPAC</a> (Reuters) — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spac-blank-check-companies-explained-2020-5">More on SPACs here from Business Insider's Melia Russell</a> </li><li><a href="https://www.axios.com/hca-hospitals-q2-profit-coronavirus-pandemic-7d63690e-c523-4694-b028-27be29b050de.html">The biggest for-profit hospital chain in the US just posted a massive profit, shrugging off the </a><a href="https://www.axios.com/hca-hospitals-q2-profit-coronavirus-pandemic-7d63690e-c523-4694-b028-27be29b050de.html">coronavirus</a> (Axios)</li><li><a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/pfizer-biontech-stock-price-government-orders-millions-coronavirus-vaccine-doses-2020-7-1029419919"> Pfizer, BioNTech surge after the US government orders 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine</a> (Markets Insider)</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-fauci-birx-coronavirus-task-force-missing-from-trump-briefing-2020-7">Trump gave his first coronavirus briefing since April, and none of the other members of the coronavirus task force were in the room</a> (Business Insider)</li></ul> See you tomorrow for a longer Friday version of <keyword id="6265204" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="dispensed">Dispensed</keyword>! You can find me in the meantime at <a href="mailto:lramsey@businessinsider.com">lramsey@businessinsider.com</a>.<a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/dispensed-daily">Subscribe to this daily email here.</a>- Lydia

Republicans are weighing a short-term extension for federal unemployment benefits

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Thursday. <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/10-things-in-tech&amp;hash=8122c716833601fc1471f79af063b104b104">Sign up here</a> to get this email in your inbox every morning.<ol><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wirecard-coo-jan-marsalek-russia-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Jan Marsalek, the ex-COO of collapsed German payment service Wirecard, likely fled to Russia, not Belarus or the Philippines, intelligence sources have told Insider</a>. Marsalek entered Russia over 60 times in the past decade on six Austrian passports and three "diplomatic" passports issued by another, unidentified country, sources said. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-firms-licensed-sell-spyware-repressive-regimes-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">UK companies are marketing and selling spy tech to countries accused of using such technology to abuse human rights</a>. Data analysed by Business Insider showed firms were licensed during the first three months of 2020 to sell surveillance kit to Pakistan, Oman, and the UAE, among other nations.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-says-hackers-saw-messages-from-36-accounts-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Twitter said on Wednesday that the hackers who breached its systems last week likely read the direct messages of 36 accounts, including one belonging to an elected official in the Netherlands</a>. In tweets from its support account and an updated blog post, Twitter said it had no indication that the private messages of any other elected officials were obtained.</li><li><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53503710">Workplace chat service Slack filed an EU antitrust complained against Microsoft Teams, saying bundling the software within Office 365 was anti-competitive</a>. Microsoft shot back, saying Slack had suffered from a lack of videoconferencing functionality.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nearform-ireland-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-approached-us-states-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">US states are turning to NearForm, the company that made Ireland's contact-tracing app, for help with their contact-tracing efforts</a>. Other countries and US states have already asked permission to retool the app for themselves, and NearForm told Business Insider it's started work with Pennsylvania authorities.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-threatened-with-ban-in-pakistan-over-immoral-content-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Pakistan's telecoms regulator has issued TikTok with a "final warning," threatening to ban it over complaints about "immoral, obscene and vulgar content."</a> The regulator has already blocked live streaming app Bigo on the same grounds.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lime-scooter-startup-wins-tender-in-paris-europes-biggest-market-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Uber-backed scooter startup Lime and German challenger Tier have been chosen as two of three companies that can operate electric scooters in Paris</a>. Paris was inundated with scooters until it decided to pick just three operators, and the city is seen as Europe's most profitable market. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-q4-fiscal-year-earnings-satya-nadella-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Microsoft reported earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter and the full 2020 fiscal year earnings at market close on Wednesday, beating analyst expectations for overall results but missing estimates on a key business unit including its Office products</a>. The firm reported revenue of $38 billion, and earnings per share of $1.46.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-confirms-location-new-cybertruck-factory-austin-texas-gigafactory-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Tesla will build its newest factory in Austin, Texas, the company said Wednesday, and the new plant will make the Cybertruck</a>. Austin, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and other cities had fiercely competed in recent months to win the $1 billion investment. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-election-interference-trolls-twitter-facebook-2020-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Researchers have created a machine-learning technique that can identify disinformation campaigns on social media</a>. The algorithm finds patterns of suspicious posts and accounts, which could help companies shut down these campaigns early on.</li></ol>Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear <keyword id="9070519" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="10-things-in-tech">10 Things in Tech</keyword> each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings.

10 things in tech you need to know today

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Linux Foundation launched a public <keyword id="6354750" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="health">health</keyword> unit in July to use <keyword id="71487" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="open-source">open source</keyword> software to combat the <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> pandemic and future epidemics.</li><li>The foundation now has two apps: COVID Green, which is built by NearForm developers in Ireland, and COVID Shield, which is built by Shopify developers in Canada.</li><li>Currently, contact tracing apps are not widely used, but the general manager of the initiative is optimistic that adoption will improve thanks to this tech.</li></ul>The Linux Foundation has formed a new group to provide public health authorities with free technology for tracking the spread of the coronavirus and future epidemics. Linux Foundation Public Health, launched in July to focus on using <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linux-foundation-report-open-source-talent-devops-2020-10">open source</a> software to respond to the pandemic, has so far hosts two apps that notify users if they've been in contact with someone who has tested positive with COVID-19. A volunteer team of over 40 developers at Shopify in Canada built one, called COVID Shield, while a team at Irish <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="enterprise">enterprise</keyword> software developer NearForm built another, called COVID Green. Both codebases were then contributed to Linux Foundation Public Health. Since these apps are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/open-source-software-investors-success-2019-2">open source</a>, people can contribute code and customize them, allowing regions with similar needs to collaborate, general manager at Linux Foundation Public Health, Dan Kohn, told Business Insider. Developers that want to build an app off these projects can access or download the source code. These apps take advantage of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-google-covid-19-contact-tracing-goes-public-2020-5">technology launched by Apple and Google , which can be integrated into any app,</a> that uses Bluetooth on people's smartphones to track who a user has been in close proximity with, without identifying the specific people. If anyone tests positive for COVID-19 and uploads that information to a database run by a local public health authority, any user who has been in close contact with that person will get a notification through their app saying they may have been exposed – again, without identifying who has COVID-19. If someone knows that they may have been exposed, they can either self-quarantine or get tested. "Essentially we think exposure notification could have a big impact on reducing the overall rate of exposure," Kohn said.An Oxford University study in April said that if about 60% of the population used a <keyword id="9079544" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="contact-tracing-app">contact tracing app</keyword>, it could grind the diseases spread to a halt. Researchers on the team also found that digital contact tracing can cut down spread even at much <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/05/1002775/covid-apps-effective-at-less-than-60-percent-download/">lower levels of usage</a>. <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.29.20184135v1">Another recent study</a> from Oxford that focused on Washington state found that if 15% of the population participates in using exposure notification, it could reduce infections and deaths by approximately 8% and 6%, although this study has not yet been peer-reviewed.At this point, exposure notification apps have not been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-google-coronavirus-contact-tracing-tech-states-dont-plan-using-2020-6">widely used</a> in the US, but Kohn believes that the initiative from Linux Foundation Public Health could help with adoption because being open source makes them free and flexible for developers and public health authorities to work with."It's definitely been an issue that states have been quite slow in rolling out those apps," Kohn said. "I'm optimistic for speeding that up."Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linux-foundation-report-open-source-talent-devops-2020-10">Companies are looking to hire open source talent — particularly with DevOps skills — but they're having a hard time finding qualified candidates, according to a new survey</a>While Apple and Google say their technology focuses <a href="https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/current/static/contact-tracing/pdf/ExposureNotification-FAQv1.2.pdf">on preserving privacy</a> by allowing users to turn it on and off at any time, randomizing Bluetooth identifiers, and ensuring that people who test positive are not identified by the system, trust and privacy concerns could be one of the reasons for sluggish adoption of exposure notification apps so far. Also, this technology can only be integrated into an app developed by a public health authority. Kohn says there's "constant discussion going on" in the projects about Bluetooth interference and how to bolster privacy. Public health authorities in Ireland, Canada, and 12 US states are using source code hosted by the Linux Foundation Public Health in their applications today, though they are not mandated by state governments. Still, Colorado had 10% adoption with the first week of launching, the foundation says.While these apps are for exposure notification — meaning that people can get notified if they may have been exposed to someone with COVID-19 — the foundation also plans to build apps that further help with contact tracing, providing information about getting tested, and later on, information on vaccinations. Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at <a href="mailto:rmchan@businessinsider.com">rmchan@businessinsider.com</a>, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at <a href="https://twitter.com/rosaliechan17">@rosaliechan17</a>. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request.

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How Ireland built its COVID-19 contract tracing app, which is so successful that US states want to use it

Isobel Asher Hamilton

Ireland's contact-tracing app has done so well that US states want to use it

Isobel Asher Hamilton

Republicans are weighing a short-term extension for federal unemployment benefits

Lydia Ramsey Pflanzer

10 things in tech you need to know today

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The Linux Foundation wants to help combat COVID-19 with free, open source apps to tell people when they've been exposed to the virus

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