The COVID-19 pandemic is still top-of-mind globally and nationally, as well as here in Minnesota. Gov. Tim Walz recently announced a new app called COVIDaware MN. Instead of us trying to explain what this app is and how to use it and what it does and what it doesn't do, Jill Riley called on an expert: Minnesota IT Services Commissioner Tarek Tomes.

Listen to the interview above, and read a transcript of the complete conversation below. Every Wednesday morning at 8:30 CST, Jill connects with experts and local personalities for some real talk about keeping our minds and bodies healthy — from staying safe in the music scene, to exercising during a pandemic, to voting and civic engagement.

Looking for more resources and support? Visit our friends at Call to Mind, MPR's initiative to foster new conversations about mental health.

Jill Riley: What is the COVIDaware MN app?

Tarek Tomes: The COVIDaware MN app is a mobile application that is a complete opt-in, another tool that we're making available to Minnesotans to help in this fight against COVID-19. It is an application that is built on a Google and Apple exposure notification framework that allows people to warn friends, neighbors, loved ones of potential exposures to COVID-19. It's data-privacy-centric, it is completely opt-in. It doesn't use location information, it doesn't use any identifying information.

Essentially, when two phones are within six feet for 15 minutes, they exchange a random number. This random number is generated and periodically changed to protect the identity of people, and if someone tests positive, eventually, they have an option to notify others of a potential exposure. If you receive an exposure notification warning within the app, you don't know who triggered it or who tested positive. You don't know where that exposure occurred, and you actually don't know exactly when. You only receive a timeframe: within the last three days, within four to six days.

It's a really critical tool that allows us to slow the spread of COVID-19 by notifying people of potential exposures.

I downloaded the app. It's a free download, pretty easy to download onto the smartphone. It really does look pretty simple. Let's say that I test positive for COVID. It looks like I would get some kind of verification notice that I would then voluntarily enter.

Exactly. To make sure that people can't trigger an exposure notification without a true, valid, positive diagnosis in fact, that code is provided by the Department of Health, by a public health authority, for individuals that decide they want to warn and notify others. The choice is always up to the individual: both the opt-in component of the app itself, as well as the ability to use the app to warn and notify others.

If I do receive some kind of exposure detection notice, it's not going to say, you came into contact with this person today at the grocery store at four o'clock.

That's correct. You would receive a notification that essentially just tells you that you've been within six feet for 15 minutes of someone that's tested positive. You would know a date range, so within the last three days, within the last four to six days, and then it would just bring you to recommendations from the Department of Health.

What does the app not do, for anyone that's worried, "If I download this app, they're going to be following me. They're going to be watching me."

It's completely opt-in. It's found in the Google Play and Apple stores, and as you mentioned, you installed the application — so at no point in time did it ask you what your name or address is. It does not track location information or require location information within the app, and no data is ever transferred to the State of Minnesota. The State of Minnesota doesn't receive your name or anything associated with that, nor does Google and Apple.

It is really a data-privacy-centric approach, and Google and Apple partnered to create this framework understanding in the United States — and in Europe — data privacy is of the utmost criticality in providing an ability like this, to notify others. This whole framework was really built with that data privacy approach in mind.

In order for this app to be successful in being another tool in preventing the spread of COVID, you've got to get a lot of people to use it.

That is totally correct. What we frequently say, and how we frequently refer to it, is bringing your phone to the fight against COVID-19. I think that adoption is really community-based. It could be in a college or university setting. It could be in a town setting. It could be in a smaller community or neighborhood setting. Essentially, those places that you move around. While the adoption, from a statewide perspective, is really, really important, I think the adoption that is most important is that adoption that occurs in community settings. Religious spaces, colleges and universities, towns...those places where people generally move around.

Even as little as 10% to 15% adoption of an app like this, in conjunction with our other COVID-19 measures — masking, social distancing, testing — it really is a tremendous opportunity to slow the spread, because with that small adoption, every additional participant then really has an opportunity to continue to drive that [spread] down.

Commissioner Tomes, thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jill. Again, as we've mentioned, the opportunity I think is so immense with an approach like this, an anonymous opt-in approach that really protects privacy. It's built on three fundamental premises: that we can decide our own willingness to warn our friends, neighbors, people that we don't know, our willingness to opt into this app and our willingness to then follow the Department of Health measures. I think if we can embrace those things, it can be another tool that really helps us return to some of the things that we miss doing so much.