[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Je-hoon] Singaporean authorities are considering distributing wearable devices to Singaporeans for contact tracing to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), local media reported on the 5th.
According to the daily The Straits Times, Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore's Foreign Minister and Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Initiative, responded to questions in parliament regarding measures to activate Singapore's existing contact tracing application, "TraceTogether," by stating this.
Singapore's TraceTogether is an application that uses Bluetooth technology to identify people who have been in close contact with confirmed COVID-19 cases. However, Minister Balakrishnan explained that when the app runs on Apple devices, unlike Android devices, it stops using Bluetooth scanning when running in the background.
Minister Balakrishnan said, "We have repeatedly discussed this with Apple on technical and policy levels, but have not yet found a satisfactory solution," adding, "Because TraceTogether does not operate equally on all smartphones, we have decided not to mandate the use of this app at this time."
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