Keyruptive, an incubated startup in Startup Braga, is one of the companies responsible for the development of the application that will allow the tracking of contacts with people infected by the new coronavirus in Portugal, STAYAWAY COVID. Startup, which is also a spin-off from the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência (INESC TEC), participated in the 6th acceleration program promoted by Startup Braga.

Developed by a consortium coordinated by INESC TEC, which includes Keyruptive, Instituto de Saúde Pública da Universidade do Porto (ISPUP) and Ubirider, the STAYAWAY COVID application aims to assist the screening of COVID-19, allowing each user to be informed of risk exposures to the disease in a simple, safe and private way by monitoring recent contacts. "The application was developed to, in light of current knowledge and using technology as present as possible in people's phones, offer high levels of privacy. At no time are users' personal data accessed or used," says Francisco Maia, CEO of Keyruptive and one of the developers of the app.

"The STAYAWAY COVID system is another tool at the service of a global response strategy to the current pandemic. Its sole purpose is to alert application users in a timely manner about contacts, considered high risk by the World Health Organization, with other users to whom COVID-19 has been diagnosed. Strictly speaking, more than a digital tracking solution, it is a system of notification of individual exposure to contagion risk factors. To this extent, it will complement the efforts already made by health authorities to track and interrupt the chains of transmission of the disease," said Rui Oliveira, administrator of INESC TEC and professor at the University of Minho.

The application, once installed, emits random identifiers using Bluetooth and, like a radar, collects the identifiers that are emitted by nearby cell phones. In possession of these identifiers, it is simple for the application to check later if the user has been dangerously close to a particular cell phone in which the application is active and whose user has been diagnosed with COVID-19. If you are provided with and recognize one of the identifiers issued by a cell phone associated with a source of contagion, the application will alert the user to the past occurrence of a high-risk exposure to the disease.

The project was promoted by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), within the scope of the Iniciativa Nacional em Competências Digitais e.2030, Portugal INCoDe.2030 and was supported by Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda (provision of accommodation for part of the system), the Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança (monitoring development and security testing), NOS (mobile devices for experimentation and testing) and Wavecom (equipment and support in testing and Bluetooth).