WI Exposure Notification, which is supported by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Wisconsin DHS, is the official COVID-19 notification app for Wisconsin. WI Exposure Notification aids in containing the spread of COVID-19. It complements the ongoing contact trace programs by local and tribal public hospitals and DHS.
WI Exposure Notification can be used at your discretion and is free of charge. It was designed to protect your privacy and security. It can help us to contain the virus more efficiently if more people install and use it.
After you have installed and activated WI Exposure Notification, and turned on Bluetooth, the app runs in the background and sends out anonymous signals to other devices. These signals, also known as keys, are random strings of characters made up of long random strings that do not contain any personal data. The app will automatically remember keys generated by nearby devices. The app can also record signal strength. This is used to determine the distance between two devices and the duration and date.
These keys are kept only on the user’s device to protect their privacy. The keys are deleted after 14 days. WI Exposure Notification users who test positive for COVID-19 will be issued a verification code by the State of Wisconsin. To report a positive result via app, users must activate the verification code only available from Wisconsin. This protects against false reporting of positive results that could lead to false exposure notifications.
WI DHS wants app users to trust that a COVID-19 exposure has been reported via the app. If a user shares a positive test result via the app, it notifies all other users who were within 6 feet of the infected person for at least 15 minutes during a single day that they are at risk.
For the next steps, anyone who receives a notification from WI DHS should refer to the instructions in the app. WI DHS is very concerned about your privacy. We chose to use the Apple Exposure Notification API and Google Exposure Notification API. This app does not collect any personal data. WI DHS doesn’t need to know who or whereabouts you are in order to issue Exposure Notifications. The Wisconsin COVID Notice Privacy Policy is available at https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/app-privacy.htm.
WI Exposure Notification can only be used by users over 18 years old. Through a collaboration between Google and Apple, the app was built using the Google Apple Exposure Notifications API.
