ThaiChana Contact Tracing App

by **bdahm** Fri Jul 17, 2020 10:28 pm

With the latest Covid-19 scare in Rayong, one wonders how useful the ThaiChana app proved to be in terms of contact tracing and notification? How many of you are using it? The whole idea of contact tracing is that when a person is confirmed positive with Covid-19, to find out where he/she has been and then locate those with whom that person may have come in contact. Establishing a time frame and providing a phone number makes it easier to contact those who may have been infected and get them tested. This is what ThaiChana (Thai Wins) is designed to do.

Initially, though, I liked the concept, I was skeptical as to how much tracking the app might be engaged in. As a result I just used a QR scanner app, which launched my browser and I was able to register my location to the ThaiChana database. I think this app works similar to another app, Foursquare, which was popular several years ago. It allowed you to check-in and check-out of various registered locations. There was no continuous tracking going on and I believe that's the same with ThaiChana.

The other thing about the app, at least initially, was that it was only in Thai. It was only when I learned that subsequent releases supported other languages, that I decided to give it a try. It is available in Apple’s Thailand AppStore and and for Android at the Google Play Store, but I preferred waiting until it was available through the US AppStore. One of the first things I did was check to see what kind of settings showed up in Location Services. There were none, which seemed to be a good sign. I also keep Location Services turned off on my iPhone except when I am actually using it for maps or for adding location data to photos.

I prefer using the app. It is an improvement over the stand-alone QR scanner I was using to trigger my browser. After you initially enter a contact phone number, the check-in/check-out process is very smooth. What I particularly like about it is once you scan at check-in, you don’t have to scan again at check-out. You just launch the app and hit the check-out button.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8S3zWq6yitDA7r6n7

The other thing that is nice about the app is that there are situations where there may be multiple check-ins active at the same time. Such a scenario occurs when you check-in at a mall and then check-in at one of the stores or the food court in that mall. When you check out of that second location, how do you know for sure where you are actually checking-out of? That is made very clear in the app because you can see all the active places you have check-in at once. You can check-out of any of them at any time.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UArTC5i9S5LM7yPX9

Looks like they did a pretty good job on the app. I hope that the data collected can help to find and warn those who might have been exposed to Covid-19.

-Bill