AMAN App speeds up coronavirus contact tracing

AMMAN — AMAN App, a mobile application that notifies users if they happened to be in the vicinity of a diagnosed coronavirus patient, has “helped make contact tracing faster and more resource-efficient”, according to its creators.

The application was developed for Jordan's Ministry of Health by the COVID-19 JOTECH COMMUNITY, a group of tech-savvy volunteers who “aim to leverage Jordan’s tech talent in fighting the coronavirus pandemic”, according to a source at the Prime Ministry.

AMAN is among 10 other proposals by volunteers, the source added.

According to information provided by its creators, the application is described as a “privacy-conscious, exposure detection app” that allows coronavirus-positive citizens to report their recent person-to-person contact anonymously.

AMAN works on two interconnected levels. Firstly, the application operates by saving user location data, exclusively on the user’s phone, to examine and compare the movements of users in parallel to those of coronavirus carriers identified by the Ministry of Health.

Should a locational overlap occur between users and coronavirus carriers, who may later be identified as patients, AMAN alerts its users about a possible exposure to the virus and provides instructions about home isolation and contacting authorities.

Secondly, should a user be diagnosed with the coronavirus, retracing the user’s movements in the 14 days prior to their diagnosis would be “attainable and easily accessible” through AMAN which provides information such as dates, times, and places. 

This functionality aids in notifying other users who happened to be in the vicinity of the diagnosed patient, which “ultimately expedites diagnosis and controls the spread of the virus”, according to its creators.

According to a study by the University of Oxford, a model showed that “the epidemic can be stopped if approximately 60 per cent of the population use a contact tracer app”.

That is why, in the words of its creators, “downloading AMAN is a moral obligation towards yourself and your country”.

Current research indicates that 55 per cent of the population needs to download AMAN for it to be effective in controlling the spread of COVID-19 and easing the lockdown.

So far, more than 150,000 Android users have downloaded the app, and the iOS version is currently waiting for approval from Apple.

The source at the Prime Ministry said that “when the total shutdown was in place, it was easy for the Ministry of Health’s teams to trace an infected patient's movements, but now with the gradual opening of many sectors, it is increasingly hard to do so”.

Upon consent, the app allows infected users to retrace his/her movements, which are stored as location data, for the 14 days preceding diagnosis. In turn, the application will anonymously notify other users with a potential likelihood of exposure to the virus and encourage them to take the necessary steps to ensure their wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of those around them.

The source highlighted that the application does not ask you for any personally identifiable information and noted that “the privacy of a user’s data is the app’s number one priority. The apps design follows a decentralised approach for data storage. Therefore, it stores data only on your device, not on a central database”.

The number of countries around the world endorsing and implementing contact tracing apps as part of their COVID-19 containment strategy is on the rise, including Bahrain, India, Singapore, South Korea, Iceland, Norway, Australia and the UAE among others.

According to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, countries who have taken the three measures of mass testing, imposing the wearing of masks and gloves, and creating application tracers were the ones who have so far contained the virus.