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National | Contact Tracing App

Contact tracing card moves into final phase of trial programme

The Ministry of Health says the trial programme for the proposed contact tracing card is now moving into the final "on the ground" and analysis phases.

The contact tracing card was launched today in Rotorua by caretaker government Digital Services Minister Kris Faafoi and Te Arawa Covid Response Hub kaumātua Dr Sir Toby Curtis and Monty Morrison.

The ministry has worked closely in partnership with Te Arawa and the Universities of Waikato and Otago to co-design these phases of the programme. The programme aims to recruit between 500 and 1,500 members of the Ngongotaha community, who will be asked to wear the cards as they go about their daily activities and attend community events.

Registration for this programme will start on October 30, and the trial process will finish on November 15.

The cards use Bluetooth to exchange 'digital handshakes' with each other to keep an anonymised record of participants' close contacts with each other.

The trial will help to show how well the contact tracing cards perform in a real-world scenario, whether they are compatible with current contact tracing systems, and if people will accept and use them. The results of the trial will help inform a decision by the government later this year on whether contact tracing cards should be rolled out more widely to support contact tracing alongside the NZ Covid Tracer app.