Less than two months after its initial release, two major state agencies are working with the University of California to expand their deployment of free technology that notifies users of possible exposure to COVID-19.
The California departments of Technology (CDT) and Public Health (CDPH) are widening the availability on college campuses of the Exposure Notification Express mobile technology recently released by Apple and Google to more than triple its presence. The initial pilot was announced Sept. 11 and began about six weeks ago; CDPH revealed the expansion Thursday via a news release. Among the takeaways:
- The pilot of the mobile technology, known as CA Notify, began on University of California campuses in San Francisco (UCSF) and San Diego (UCSD). In mid-November, it will expand to five other campuses: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and UC Riverside. When activated by its user, the app uses Bluetooth to confidentially notify people who have been “in close proximity” to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, CDPH has said. Each user’s device collects “anonymous keys” from other app users whom they’ve been close to in the past 14 days, using these along with “Bluetooth attenuation (signal strength), date of the exposure, and date of the symptom onset or test,” CDT has said, to decide who gets an exposure notification. The app collects “basic metrics” on the number and timing of exposure notifications that have been sent, but no personal information on who sent or received those notifications.
“We are encouraged to know that nearly 50 percent of the individuals who have access to the technology have proactively activated it to see how it might protect them and their UC communities,” state Chief Information Officer and CDT Director Amy Tong said in a statement. “We continue to use the pilot project to better understand the technology and its privacy protections, which is critical in determining whether to roll out the system more broadly to all Californians.”
Only “a handful” of CDT staff have worked on the project thus far, CDPH told Techwire via email late Friday, adding: “UCSD, UCSF, Google and Apple have all been tremendous partners in providing the resources to implement the pilot. With the expansion to the 5 new campuses, again the UCs are carrying the weight of implementation responsibility.” - Nearly 15,000 users at UC San Diego have activated the technology according to university estimates; that’s equal to nearly 50 percent of the so-called “on‐campus community.” Around 5,000 users from UC San Francisco’s estimated 10,000 on-campus population have used the software.
“More than a dozen private codes have been issued to students and employees using the software who have tested positive for COVID-19,” CDPH said in the news release. “Extending the pilot project allows us to reach a larger and more diverse pool of users to further evaluate the technology’s potential to help California slow the spread of COVID-19,” Dr. Erica Pan, interim state public health officer, said in a statement. “Our appreciation goes out to the University of California students and employees who have opted in to test this new technology.” “These people would not have been alerted through the traditional contact tracing processes,” the department said via email, noting: “Due to the privacy-preserving design of CA Notify, we do not know how many people have received exposure notifications.” - The pilot of the smartphone app debuted in September at UC San Diego as part of its Return to Learn program and the university is now helping the other UC campuses with their own launches. UCSD’s experience revealed “measurable success in early exposure notification using the app,” Dr. Christopher Longhurst, CIO at UC San Diego Health, said in a statement. People who are notified of exposure through the app are given instructions for what to do next, including utilizing testing resources on campus.
The pilot, the department told Techwire via email, “is helping us better understand the technology, its privacy protections, and the operational considerations needed if we chose to expand the technology further in California.”
