CEBU CITY – A Cebuano Information Technology expert has developed a community tracker app called “WeTrace” that is specifically designed for COVID-19 contact tracing and can be downloaded into mobile phones to help the Department of Health and other government agencies for easy tracking and monitoring of COVID-19 cases in Central Visayas.
Eddie Ybanez, an IT expert and chief technology officer of Payruler, developed the mobile app and applied and currently awaiting approval from Google and Apple.
Ybanez said that Google informed him of a possible approval of the app two to three days after uploading it at Google and Apple on March 21. “Hopefully, we will hear from them Tuesday or Wednesday this week,” he said.
The mobile app WeTrace.ph, once approved, can be downloaded on mobile phones by any individual who wants to log in on the website. Ybanez explained that once a person uses the app, it will generate a unique QR code or a device ID number as the only identification trace of the user.
“The app does not ask for any personal or private data. No names, no photos, nor any personal details of the user. What is visible is the individual’s unique ID number, nothing more, nothing less to protect his or her identity as provided for under the privacy protection law,” Ybanez said.
Once a person logs in and uses the WeTrace app, it will trace his or her timeline and movements, including the places he or she visited and the people who were with him or her on a particular timeline, Ybanez said, adding that “this is specifically efficient for contact tracing those with flu-like and COVID-19 symptoms or the PUIs and PUMs to generate patient mapping.”
The app was presented Sunday to the members of the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force on Managing Emerging Infectious Disease and Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council at the Emergency Operations Center at the DoH Region 7 compound here.
Ybañez’s team is currently working with the Cebu provincial government, Department of Health, Philippine National Police, and other concerned government agencies in Cebu on how the app will be integrated in the government’s COVID-19 response measures.
The app has yet to be launched formally for public use. (Minerva BC Newman)
