Japan's COVID-19 Contact Notification App Malfunctions for Over 4 Months

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the responsible agency, also realized it belatedly

[Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] It has been revealed that the Japanese government's application (app) 'Cocoa,' which notifies users if they have been in contact with a COVID-19 confirmed case, has not been functioning properly for over four months.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun on the 4th, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan's COVID-19 response agency, reported that the total number of downloads of this app, which began operation in June last year, reached 24.64 million as of the previous day.

However, it was confirmed that about 7.7 million downloads, accounting for 31% of the Android version, did not send notifications even if users had been in contact with confirmed cases since the end of September last year.

This app, which utilizes smartphone location information, is designed to notify people who have been within 1 meter for more than 15 minutes within 14 days if a person who tested positive registers a processing number issued by the health center.

So far, about 10,000 people have registered as infected on this app, and it is known that notifications are being sent normally to iPhone version users.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, after repeated criticisms since the end of last year that notifications were not being received despite contact with positive cases, belatedly investigated the situation and recently confirmed the error.

Since the app's initial release, errors have been continuously discovered, and a total of seven revised versions have been distributed so far. The error revealed this time was in the revised version released in September last year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.