15 May 2020

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A locally developed contact tracing app will help Christchurch City Council monitor who is using its facilities while the country is in COVID-19 Alert Level 2.

The new Traceable Pro app has been developed by Christchurch technology company, Webtools Health and modified to meet the Council’s specific needs.

“The app means we have an efficient way to track who is in our facilities at any one time so that we can contract trace if we need to. It will make accessing our facilities easier for our customers, our staff and our contractors,’’ says Mary Richardson, who has been leading the Council’s COVID-19 Incident Management Team.

“The app also allows us to track the number of people in our facilities so that we can make sure we are adhering to Ministry of Health guidelines.’’

When arriving at a site, visitors will be asked to scan their ID cards and add their email or phone number in case tracing is needed.  The scanning is done on the Council’s devices and so visitors do not need to use their own phones. 

All data is held securely and can only be accessed for the purposes of contact tracing if requested by the Ministry of Health.

That data will be securely stored in the Cloud for 60 days as required by the Ministry of Health. During the time the data is held, it can only be accessed for the purposes of contact tracing. At the end of the 60 days the data will be deleted.

“A key consideration for us in developing this app was to provide an effective solution while giving organisations and their users true confidence about data privacy,’’ says Webtools Health Chief Executive Harry Hawke. “We’ve implemented multiple measures and safeguards to ensure data security is achieved.’’

“We’re thrilled that we’ve been able to work with a local technology company on a contact tracing solution that will work across all our facilities and is easy to use. We’re a large organisation that operates from multiple sites and that has staff and visitors coming and going all the time,’’ Ms Richardson adds.