How COVIDAware MN Works

How COVIDaware MN works.
Step 1. Start using COVIDaware MN.
See Will this work on my phone? to see if your phone is compatible.
Android: Download the free COVIDaware MN app from the Android Google Play Store . Step 2. Your phone remembers other devices it meets, but won’t identify you to anyone.
COVIDaware MN uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology to notify you if you have been
exposed to COVID-19, so you can reduce the risk of infection for your friends, family, and
neighbors, and help Minnesota slow the spread.
For iPhone: Download the free COVIDaware MN app from the iPhone App Store or enable
the Exposure Notification Setting (OS 13.7).
Once you opt-in to the notification system, COVIDaware MN will generate an anonymous key
for your phone—the key is a random number. To help ensure that these random keys can’t be
used to identify you or your location, they change every 10-20 minutes.
Step 3. Your privacy is protected. No information that will identify you will ever leave
your phone.
Your phone and the phones around you work anonymously in the background, using Bluetooth
Low Energy (BLE) technology to exchange these privacy-protected keys. This is a passive
process that begins once you opt-in. COVIDaware MN functions in the background, and it won’t
drain your battery.
Step 4. The system checks for positive COVID-19 cases every day.
Step 5. COVIDaware MN will notify you if you may have been exposed to the coronavirus.
On a daily basis, your phone downloads a list of all the anonymous keys associated with
positive COVID-19 cases and checks them against the list of random keys your phone has
encountered in the last 14 days.
If there’s a match, COVIDaware MN will notify you with further instructions from the Minnesota
Department of Health about what you need to do to keep you and the people around you safe.
With COVIDaware MN, you can help break the chain of infection, and get help directly from
health experts.