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COVIDSafe uses the Herald Protocol to improve app performance
COVIDSafe uses the Herald Protocol to
improve app performance
19 December 2020
Tags:  COVID-19 (/taxonomy/term/413)   COVIDSafe (/taxonomy/term/419)
Today’s COVIDSafe update introduces the new Herald Protocol to improve the capture of close
contacts.

The introduction of the Herald Protocol will continue the improvements we have made to how
COVIDSafe captures close contacts. It is an important tool to prevent another lockdown, as we
prepare to go back to work in COVID-safe environments, travel to see families and friends at
Christmas, and get the economy moving again.
COVIDSafe supports Australia’s efforts to reopen internal borders by Christmas. It works
alongside good hygiene, physical distancing and testing if you have symptoms.
You can use the app when you are moving around, wherever you find yourself in Australia. We
encourage everybody to download, use and update to the latest version of the app to help
fight the spread of COVID-19.
Update details
The Herald Protocol
The Herald Protocol improves the way COVIDSafe captures close contacts. It introduces new
techniques that provide reliable Bluetooth communication across a wide range of devices.
These techniques provide improved Bluetooth communication between devices in real world
scenarios – even when your phone is locked or the COVIDSafe app is in the ‘background’. The
Herald Protocol will give COVIDSafe more regular and accurate information on close contacts,
which in turn helps State and Territory contact tracers.
Herald allows COVIDSafe to perform better without changing the information COVIDSafe
collects and uses. Find out more on how COVIDSafe stores information
(https://covidsafe.gov.au/background.html#how-covidsafe-stores-information).  
For more information about COVIDSafe, Herald or the technology behind the app, including
the source code, visit covidsafe.gov.au. (http://www.covidsafe.gov.au)
Our approach to digital contact tracing
Australia has taken a public health-centred approach to COVID-19 contact tracing, leveraging
our strong public health systems. This keeps State and Territory health officials at the centre of
our world-leading contact tracing process.
Our trained and qualified health officials provide expert, tailored advice and reassurance
directly to people who’ve been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19. The health
officials help them to navigate next steps such as self-isolation and getting tested. This
approach has seen health officials successfully manage the spread of COVID-19 in Australia,
and the Herald-enabled COVIDSafe app will better assist them to confirm close contacts they
need to follow up.
The Herald-enabled COVIDSafe system is a critical part of successfully managing the pandemic.
It is designed to provide health officials with the right data to analyse clusters and identify hot
spots, respond to outbreaks, and trace the source of infection for all confirmed cases. Health
officials can also use COVIDSafe to assist people to recall their interactions over the previous
two weeks.     
It is important that Australia’s digital contact tracing solution supports our contact tracing
process and provides the information our health officials need. The Herald-enabled COVIDSafe
system does this. It works with existing state and territory health practices to provide a full
contact tracing solution to complement manual processes. Its design has been based on the
advice of Australia’s leading medical and public health experts.
There are other digital responses to COVID-19 such as the Exposure Notification Framework
(ENF) that was developed by Apple and Google. COVIDSafe and the ENF were designed to
support health officials in different ways. The ENF, as the name suggests, focuses primarily on
notifying individuals who may have been exposed to COVID-19. COVIDSafe is designed
primarily to assist health officials to personally contact at-risk individuals. It also provides
health officials with the relevant data they need to contain the virus, such as the source of
infection for positive cases. This approach is one of the reasons why we have been able to
successfully manage the spread of COVID-19.
We have worked closely with Google and Apple as we developed COVIDSafe, and they
developed the ENF. We are grateful to Apple and Google for their support of the Australian
Government’s approach to public health-centred digital contact tracing, and for assisting us in
making COVIDSafe the best solution for Australia.  
A Herald-enabled COVIDSafe plays a key role in Australia’s continued COVID-19 response.
Herald will support Australia's contact tracers with the information they need to maintain our
world leading contact tracing processes.
Your strong privacy protections are retained with Herald
It is important to note that we will not collect any new information from you, or use your
information in a different way with Herald than we do with COVIDSafe now. You can be
confident that your privacy and security are and will continue to be protected. The Privacy
Amendment (Public Health Contact Information) Act 2020
(https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2020A00044) gives you unprecedented privacy
protection. You can find out more about how we handle your information in the COVIDSafe
privacy policy (https://covidsafe.gov.au/privacy-policy.html).
Allowing Access to Location Services
iOS users are strongly encouraged to provide permission for COVIDSafe to access Location
Services on their device for Herald to work effectively when COVIDSafe is in the background.
COVIDSafe needs to access Location Services because of the way the iOS operating system
manages permissions.
Even though COVIDSafe uses the Location Services feature on Android and now iOS devices, it
does not track your location.
When you update or install COVIDSafe, the app will ask you to let COVIDSafe access Location
Services. If you are an existing Android user, you have already provided COVIDSafe with access
to Location Services, because it is Google technical requirement for apps that use Bluetooth.
This requirement has now been extended to iOS users. Again, we will not track or record your
location.
Source code update and next release
Herald is a new protocol, and is not related to the previous protocol used in the United
Kingdom’s NHSx app. We have released the application source code in line with today’s
announcement and encourage review and feedback within the source code repository
(https://covidsafe.gov.au/app-code-terms-and-conditions.html).
We would like to thank the tech community for their feedback on the source code for this
latest update. We have addressed several issues identified and incorporated fixes to support
the successful integration of the Herald Protocol into COVIDSafe.
We are currently working on the next update to the COVIDSafe app, which we plan to release
in a couple of weeks.
Visit the COVIDSafe website (https://covidsafe.gov.au/) for more information.
For media enquiries email us at xxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx (mailto:xxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx)
For other enquiries email us at xxxx@xxx.xxx.xx (mailto:xxxx@xxx.xxx.xx)
© Commonwealth of Australia. With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms and
where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license.