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Ireland part of tests to form EU Covid tracing app

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Six EU countries have begun testing a new virtual "gateway" to ensure national coronavirus tracing apps can work across borders.

Ireland, along with the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Latvia will be part of the trial beginning today.

The trial will allow national computer systems that run tracing apps to communicate with each other via a central hub.

If the test succeeds users will be able to use their own apps while abroad in the other five countries to ensure they are notified if they have been in close contact with another user who has recently tested positive.

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(Left to right) HSE Director General Paul Reid, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly and acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn at the launch of the official Irish health service executive "Covid Tracker" contact tracing app at the Department of Health in Dublin.

The new system "will ensure that apps will work seamlessly also across borders," the EU executive said.

"Users will only need to install one app and will still be able to report a positive infection test or receive an alert, even if they travel abroad," it said.

It is hoped that every EU country with a covid tracker app will eventually be linked with other member countries as a way of containing new outbreaks as early as possible.

However, problems may arise due to differing national data protection rules in different countries.

Some countries also have different technology in place within their contact tracing apps which could pose a headache when it comes to linking up all 27 EU countries.

Ireland's covid tracker app was released by the HSE on July 6th, and at the time of writing the app currently boasts over 1.28 million downloads.