The Peru Gazette

We have worked hard over these past months to establish a nation-leading testing and tracing program. Together with all the measures New Yorkers have taken to stop the spread, state-of-the-art testing and tracing have helped us make remarkable progress. Today, we build on this effort by adding an innovative new tool: COVID Alert NY — the official Exposure Notification App created by the New York State Department of Health in partnership with Google and Apple. Now you can use your phone to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and you can receive exposure alert notifications without compromising your privacy or personal information.

COVID Alert NY is New York State’s official Exposure Notification App. This is a free smartphone app available to anyone 18+ who lives and/or works in New York. The app uses Bluetooth technology — not location data — to quickly alert users if they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. Once alerted, users can quickly protect themselves and others by self-quarantining, contacting their physician and getting tested.

The app does not compromise privacy or collect your personal information. Use of the app is completely voluntary and anonymous. The app will never track your location.

Privacy is protected because your data is kept anonymous and is not identifiable to any individual. The State Department of Health cannot identify who downloads the app, and does not collect your name, phone number or other personal information. Any data you voluntarily choose to share is anonymous and can be deleted at any time. Learn more about the app’s expert-vetted security and privacy here.

As you go about your day, the app uses Bluetooth to sense when another person with the same app comes within 6 feet of you. Your phone exchanges a secure random code with the other phone to record your proximity.

If the app notes that you’ve been within 6 feet of someone for more than 10 minutes, the app adds their phone’s random code to a list of close contacts. When a fellow app user tests positive for COVID-19, a Case Investigator from the county health department will ask if the person is willing to share the app’s list of “close contact” codes to help protect other people. Sharing your list is secure and private. The app never reveals who you are to anyone.

Each day, the list of codes for “confirmed cases” is sent to every phone that has the app. The app compares its own list of close contact codes to the list of confirmed cases. If there’s a match, the app displays a COVID Alert. Using these lists of anonymous codes, the alert is kept private. No one ever knows who generated the COVID Alert.

Neighboring states including New Jersey and Pennsylvania have launched Exposure Notification Apps that work in concert with New York’s, meaning New Yorkers will also get alerted if they have been exposed to someone from one of these states who tests positive.

The more New Yorkers using the COVID Alert NY app, the more effective it will be as a tool to stop the spread of COVID-19. Download the app today and encourage your friends and loved ones to download it, too. Alerts can only come from other people who use the app, so we need as many New Yorkers as possible to download the app.

The COVID Alert NY app puts the power in the hands of all New Yorkers to protect ourselves, our neighbors, friends, family and community. Together, we can slow the spread of COVID-19.

Ever Upward,

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo