Track and trace app must be mandatory to all visitors into NZ

A mandatory track and trace app must be made available to all visitors into New Zealand, says Jupl co-founder Sir Ray Avery.

The call comes as New Zealand looks at how travel will be regulated and visitors into the country will be managed throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

"People say that New Zealand's tracking and tracing capabilities for monitoring those under quarantine and those at risk of infection by community transmission are substantially outdated.

"New Zealand's aims of wiping out COVID-19 can only be achieved if with an ongoing testing programme and real time track and tracing," Avery says.

A track and trace app would be able to provide breadcrumb tracking of where a person went and the time they were in contact with an infected person or people.

It would be able to track and trace an individual nurses movements and advise nursing staff they are entering a COVID-19 patient's zone and record the time they were in contact with the patient.

Avery says an app would allow members of the public, nurses and patients to send an emergency alert that they need help at the 'press of a button'.

"For women enduring domestic violence it would allow them to send silent alerts for help to their caregivers, family and friends or emergency services. For aged care patients it would monitor their movements and their walk speed and alert caregivers, family and friends they had not moved from their bed in days," he explains.

"All personal data would be encrypted using medical grade security technology ensuring that the end users privacy is not compromised," Avery adds.

Avery says the platform for such an app platform already exists through Jupl Technology. The New Zealand-based tech company manufactures personal monitoring and tracking systems which are being used by people throughout Australasia and will shortly be launched in the USA. It is partnered by Spark.

Avery says he would be comfortable with a proven secure privately owned cloud-based medical grade technology platform than an open source mobile phone app managed by government or Google.

"The Jupl solution is right here right now and would future proof not only our COVID-19 tracking and tracing requirements but protect our frontline medical staff and those at risk from family violence," he says.

"To date there has been no transparency regarding the development and management of the governments track and trace strategies or the decision-making process.

"Without a national track and trace policy strategy, Kiwis will struggle to fully totally beat the COVID-19 virus," he says.

"No country can become an island nation which has eliminated COVID-19 -19 without ongoing monitoring of ourselves and our visitors."