MONTREAL —
Quebec’s artificial intelligence institute, MILA, has launched a tracking app designed to protect people from COVID-19 and limit its spread.
The app, called “COVI,” will collect information from different people through a network and aims to help calculate one’s probability of catching the virus.
The institute believes the app will allow authorities to lift social distancing measures.
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MILA president Valérie Pisano says that much like contact tracing, the app respects identity protection for people who’ve been exposed to COVID-19.
Pisano said the institute is in talks with governments at multiple levels, including the federal government, to permit the usage of the app over the next few weeks.
On Friday, Mylène Drouin, Montreal’s public health director, said her team has been preparing to study apps that can trace COVID-19. Pisano said MILA’s proposed app is one of them.
Montreal is Canada’s most affected region, both in terms of the number of COVID-19-related deaths and the number of confirmed cases.
MILA is an artificial intelligence research institute based in Montreal that groups more than 500 researchers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 18, 2020.
This content was originally published here.
