After two WAAY 31 employees tested positive for coronavirus, the I-Team noticed inconsistencies with how the state's contact tracing app tracks and notifies people about possible exposure.
For joining us tonight.
I'm schaffer dan shaffer.
>> najahe sherman: and i'm najahe sherman.
The contact tracing app is supposed to be one of the brig gest advances in tracking and hopefully stopping the spread of the coronavirus.
But after two waay-31 employees tested positive for the coronavirus, the iteam noticed inconsistencies with how the guide says the app tracks and notifies people about possible exposure.
>> dan shaffer: sydney martin is live after taking those concerns to guide safe.
>> sydney martin: guidesafe director sue feldman told me they'd identified three major issues with the app and now they're working with google and apple to fix the problems. >> people are getting these kind of pop-up alerts telling them they have a possible exposure but none is there when they go to look.
It you indicates their device was in to proximity to someone who later reported a positive test for covid-19 but the proximity did not reach the threshold to take further action >> sydney martin: apple users might have received a notification they've been exposed to someone with coronavirus.
But then opened up the app to see this screen saying no recent exposures.
>> so it's letting them know hey , you were kind of in contact but not close contact.
>> sydney martin: feldman explained close contact is within being six feet of someone for more than 15 minutes.
She told me another issue identified by guide safe is the date of exposure might not be accurate.
>> we are finding out that people are notified of an exposure on a certain date and they know they were not out of the house on that date.
So that is usually a one-day -- one day, minus one day.
So you could have -- you'd be notified that maybe you were exposed on a wednesday when really you were exposed on a tuesday.
>> sydney martin: and she said qal kate -- calculating quarantine time is important.
Google and apple do it differently.
>> then there's an issue between google and apple, how they report the quarantine.
The android phones report it as a countdown.
And the iphones report it as straight 14 days.
And so what i mean by a count down is that as the quarantine's 14 days, if you get your exposure four days into it, then the quarantine is ten days.
And it does that math for you.
On the iphone it just says 14 days and you have to do the math yourself.
>> sydney martin: something very important to know for all guide safe users, when you download the app you have to use a cell phone number.
If you don't use a phone number that's the same cell phone number when you go to get tested at a clinic for coronavirus, then when you get your results it won't
The creators and team behind the Guidesafe contact-tracing app now say they've fixed the ongoing bug and glitch issues.