I& #39;m going to go on a rant because I keep seeing the same misconceptions reported about Canada& #39;s COVID Alert app.

Constantly framing the story around privacy concerns only begets privacy concerns. The app *does not* share with the government, or anyone, a user& #39;s name, location or health information. COVID Alert asks users what province they& #39;re in but you can even select "PREFER NOT TO SAY."

Let& #39;s stop saying "the app is not effective because only X percent of people have it." Oxford researchers found "digital exposure notification can effectively reduce infections, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 at AT ALL LEVELS OF PARTICIPATION." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.29.20184135v1.full.pdf">https://www.medrxiv.org/content/1...

No one knows how many people have received an exposure notification in Canada because privacy features make it unknowable. Devices exchange codes directly from one to another. They do not send a signal to a central server. No one is hiding the data.

Just because someone has tweeted that they received an exposure notification and that they then tested negative for COVID-19... this is not evidence that the app doesn& #39;t work. Not every exposure leads to infection. Better to know, than to not know, no?

It& #39;s true COVID Alert only works on smartphones made in the past 5 years or so. That& #39;s all the Apple-Google framework will allow. Indeed, it& #39;s unfortunate more people won& #39;t be able to download it because of that. It& #39;s also unfortunate more people who can... don& #39;t.