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Smittestop: Denmark launches English version of Covid-19 contact tracing app

The Local Denmark
The Local Denmark - [email protected]
Smittestop: Denmark launches English version of Covid-19 contact tracing app
A file photo of the Danish version of the Smittestop app. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

An English-language version of Denmark’s Covid-19 tracing app Smittestop is now available.

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Denmark's Covid-19 tracking app Smittestop is now available in English. The app can be downloaded in English and Danish via the App Store and Google Play.     

The app notifies other users of the app that have been in close proximity if a user registers a positive coronavirus test. That enables it to let people know if they have been potentially exposed without any personal communication.

English-language resources explaining the app and how to use and download it can be found here.

The Danish version of the app was released in June and was downloaded by 245,000 people on its first day. That was reported to have increased to almost 1.4 million by September, with 400 people having logged in to the app to register that they had been infected.

Smittestop was developed using Apple and Google tech designed to protect personal data.

“The purpose of the Smittestop app is to help people stop the spread of Covid-19 by stopping the infection chain. If infected, you can choose to let the App notify other app-users who have been in close proximity to you. Similarly, the app can inform you as user if you have been in close contact with another user who is infected,” the Ministry of Health said in written information provided to press.

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“The positive effects of the app have already been documented, and we know that the app has been an important factor in stopping the transmission in Denmark,” the Ministry said.

A short guide on how to use the app is also available in eleven other languages: in Arabic, Polish, Turkish, Urdu, English, Greenlandic, Faroese, Kurdish, Farsi, Somali and Tigrinya. The guides can be found here.

“Unlike manual contagion tracing, the app allows you to contact unknown persons, such as people you pass by on public transport or grocery shopping, and let them know they are at risk of infection,” the Ministry of Health states.  

Smittestop works via Bluetooth. Its use requires nothing more than download and activation of the app.

“It is voluntary to use the app, but the more who download and activate it, the better the app can help us stop the transmission of Covid-19. Be aware that the app only works on newer operating systems of certain smartphones,” the ministry notes.

READ ALSO: Which European countries' coronavirus phone apps have had the most success?

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