The federal government will close the COVID alert application and may do so this week, government sources told CBC News.
Sources spoke to CBC News on the condition that they not be named because they are not allowed to discuss the matter publicly. The Globe and Mail first reported the news.
The phone app, which was launched in the summer of 2020, is designed to alert users to possible exposure to COVID-19. Users who tested positive for the virus use a unique key in the app to report their diagnoses. Their phones then exchange codes with other phones that have the app installed and alert those who have been within two meters of an infected person for 15 minutes or more.
The federal government encouraged the use of the app during the pandemic. The app does not collect personal information such as locations, addresses, and phone contacts.
The COVID alert has been downloaded only 6,893,423 times and only 57,704 unique keys have been used to report an infection, according to the government. Canada has seen 3.87 million COVID-19 infections and 41,000 related deaths since the pandemic began.
Experts have questioned the effectiveness of the app in limiting the spread of COVID-19, saying it would have required many more downloads and user information to make it work. The emergence of the more infectious variant of Omicron may also have impaired the ability of the application to track infections.
Users in British Columbia, Alberta, Nunavut and the Yukon cannot obtain unique codes to report COVID-19 infections. There has also been confusion about whether the app works.
The app cost $ 20 million. Most of that money ($ 15.9 million) was spent on promotion and advertising, while $ 3.5 million was spent on developing and maintaining the app.