On Sept. 9, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, 5th District; County Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia; Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek and Citizen CEO Andrew Frame appeared at a press conference at L.A. City Hall to announce a partnership with SafePass, a mobile app that provides contact-tracing capabilities for individuals throughout Los Angeles County.

SafePass will allow users to self-report their symptoms for COVID-19 and receive notifications and alerts directly from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. All contact tracing data is anonymous, private, encrypted and deleted after 30 days by Citizen.

Officials encouraged residents to download the app – available as a separate app for iOS devices and within the Citizen app for Android users – to expand local efforts to track COVID-19 for L.A. County’s 10 million residents.

“The county’s partnership with SafePass is a valuable tool to help slow the spread of COVID-19 throughout our region,” said Barger, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. “The success of the SafePass app relies on a continued sense of community impact among our residents by asking individuals to do their part to protect themselves and their neighbors.”

The Citizen SafePass mobile app complements the existing local COVID-19 response efforts in Los Angeles County by introducing an innovative tool that ramps up the critical contact-tracing process. Following three months of testing with more than 700,000 users, SafePass was recently made available to users across the United States.

Using Bluetooth technology and anonymized data, SafePass tracks any close contacts with other users and alerts them to potential exposures. Any users who have meaningful contact with another user who later tests positive for COVID-19 will receive a notification to get tested. The app also offers immediate access to eligible users for a free at-home testing kit for those who have been notified of exposure through the app and provides up to date information about all active testing sites in Los Angeles County. All location data is anonymized and deleted after 30 days.

“We have to deploy every tool at our disposal to halt the spread of COVID-19 – from wearing masks to keeping our distance to avoiding large gatherings – and contact tracing is an absolutely essential part of our effort to track this virus and save lives,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. “The Citizen SafePass app puts the power of public health in the palms of our hands, equipping us with another way to expand our tracing programs, bend the COVID curve in the right direction, protect our families and friends, and build on recent progress against this deadly pandemic.”

For information, visit covid19.lacounty.gov/testing, citizen.com/safepass and coronavirus.lacity.org/testing.