PUTRAJAYA, May 3 — The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) has developed an application called MyTrace to help the government trace individuals who may have gone near anyone carrying the Covid-19 virus, said Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

He said MyTrace, which was developed in collaboration with local experts, would complement the MySejahtera launched earlier and would use the Bluetooth technology for contact tracing.

"When mobile phone users with MyTrace are near each other, the Bluetooth waves can detect their presence.

"Based on the strength of the Bluetooth waves detected, the distance and period of their meeting can be determined. The data collected will be kept for 21 days in the handphones of users,” he told a daily press conference here today.

Ismail Sabri said the consumer data gathered would be anonymized and MyTrace was not meant to collect geolocation information.

"(This method of) contact tracing is very important to enable us to know who has gone near a person identified as Covid-19 positive,” he added.

Saying that the government was targeting 60 per cent of handphone users in the country with the application, he encouraged the people to download MyTrace and use it.

"If a new cluster of Covid-19 is detected, the MyTrace application can help the Health Ministry to trace (contacts) and break the chain of infection as soon as possible,” he said.

MyTrace can now be downloaded from Google Play Store for mobile phones using the Android operating system while the iOS version will be available soon.

Meanwhile, when asked on the possibility of the Gerak Malaysia application crashing because of the overwhelming number of online applications, Ismail Sabri said a second option to apply for interstate travel is to go personally to a police station.

As of yesterday, more than 500,000 applications have been received via Gerak Malaysia, and police will provide a schedule for their travel between May 7 and 10. The applicants had gone back to their hometowns before the movement control order (MCO) was implemented on March 18. — Bernama