From Monday it is possible to download Immuni, the app promoted by the Ministry of Health and created by the company Bending Spoons to help contain the coronavirus epidemic through “contact tracing”. However, Immuni is not yet operational: first an experimentation must begin, which will start on Monday 8 June in the Abruzzo, Liguria, Marche and Puglia regions. It is not yet known how long the experimentation will last, but we are talking about a week. In the meantime, the app can still be downloaded from the Android and iOs stores.
What you need to download it
A smartphone, first of all, without which it cannot be used. And it is necessary that the operating system is updated: iOs – that of the iPhone – equal to or higher than version 13.5, and Android – that of Google – equal to or higher than 6 (Marshmallow, API 23). It is a feature that will probably exclude a large group of people who have slightly older smartphones and do not support these operating systems: Immuni explains, however, that this is imposed by the virus exposure notification system developed by Google and Apple in the their collective project for coronavirus contact tracing.
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How to download
It's free, and to find it just search for “Immuni” in the search bar of your smartphone's store. The phone may ask you to update the operating system.
How to get started
Immuni's graphical setting is rather intuitive and pleasant. A first sequence of screens briefly explains how the app works: by downloading and setting it correctly, when it is operational, it will alert users if they have been exposed to the coronavirus: that is, if you have been in close contact with a person who has tested positive and who reported it through the app.
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The information required by the app to be entered manually only concerns the region and province where you live. Privacy
Immune, but generally contact tracing apps, was that of privacy. It is a complicated debate, still ongoing among technology and personal data processing experts on the internet, and it is likely that those who are doubts and concerns for now will be confirmed or denied only with the dissemination and use of the app.
In the first screens of Immuni, a series of reassurances appear, explaining that the technology used by the app – Bluetooth Low Energy – does not collect the name and personal data of users, and therefore does not allow to trace the user's identity or other information. , for example its position and its movements.
Notifications
Immuni then asks to activate the Bluetooth exposure notification system. Operation is simple, at least in words: smartphones that have Immuni installed and activated, and that have Bluetooth enabled (a necessary condition for the app to work), exchange random codes among themselves. In this way, a smartphone knows which codes it has come into contact with because at close range (it does not know, for the moment, who issued those codes).
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If a user tests positive for the coronavirus test, he can decide to report it on the app, which then retrieves all the random codes issued by his smartphone and sends a notification to all the other smartphones that, in the previous days, had received those codes . Each smartphone that uses Immuni makes a periodic check of the random codes of users who tested positive, in order to immediately notify the exposed user.
To allow this mechanism, it is necessary to accept the collection of random identification codes, which therefore essentially retain information on the date, duration and strength of the signal: data necessary to determine whether the contact was long enough and prolonged to expose the potential contagion, and if it occurred at a time when the person tested positive was contagious.
What happens once Immuni is set
Nothing for now. From Monday in some regions, and then presumably a few days later throughout Italy, Immuni will begin to do its job. In concrete terms, it will not be an app to use: whoever decides to use it – it is totally voluntary, although highly recommended – will only have to make sure that the main screen of Immuni signals “Service active”: it means that everything is working correctly.
The app also works when it's closed, of course, but only when Bluetooth is turned on. For this reason, Immuni recommends leaving it on all the time, to avoid forgetting to activate it when you leave the house.
When and if a user receives the report that he has been exposed to a potential infection, he will receive instructions on how to behave based on the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. This information, however, will only be available to the user himself, and adherence to health protocols, therefore, remains voluntary, although highly recommended.
What is tracking for?
During an outbreak, contact tracing is useful for identifying people who may have been infected with one infected. It is a delicate job that is carried out by interviewing people who tested positive for the coronavirus, with the aim of reconstructing which individuals they came into contact with, exposing them to the risk of contagion. The operation requires time and adequately trained personnel, resources that are scarce during a pandemic.
To mitigate the problem, in recent months applications have been proposed and tested around the world that exploit various technological solutions and which should allow for more widespread and above all almost automatic contact tracing. The actual usefulness of these systems is still not completely clear, but the first experiences in some Asian countries, such as South Korea, have given some positive results, raising however the aforementioned privacy concerns.
