Series of flops or how HOIA failed

Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Social Affairs Kalle Killar. Photo: Tairo Lutter

Estonia’s HOIA coronavirus close contact notification app that took off with a bang has not managed to reach its potential in terms of helping contain the virus. Experts attribute the application’s failure to a series of mistakes. The Ministry of Social Affairs considers the app a success despite shortcomings.

“At the end of the day, it seems that volunteers put together and handed over a good thing, while subsequent development and communication failed,” said Marko Kääramees, director of the Department of Software Science at TalTech.

Professor of applied virology, member of the government’s COVID-19 scientific advisory council Andres Merits said that HOIA has failed to live up to expectations. “Critical mass of users and user efficiency missed the mark,” Merits said, adding that he downloaded the app as soon as it was released, while it has now become another useless gadget in his smartphone. “80 percent of people I have met do not have the application installed.”

A survey carried out by pollster Turu-uuringute AS in late October found that 92 percent of the population was aware of the HOIA application, while the app had been downloaded just 265,586 times or by 19.9 percent of the population by yesterday (Sunday – ed.).

Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Social Affairs Kalle Killar said that HOIA has around 450,000 potential users because phones sporting older versions of operating systems and Huawei smartphones (for security reasons) cannot use the application.

Killar, in charge of e-services and innovation at the ministry, said that the ministry’s initial goal was to hit 70 percent of potential users or 315,000 people. “We consider the current result to be very good,” he said.

The survey also revealed that the main reason most people use HOIA is to learn of potential contact with carriers as soon as possible. The application has been used to register a COVID-19 diagnose 3,708 times that is just 6.6 percent of all cases diagnosed (55,415) since the app was made available (on August 20, 2020).

There have been several examples where close contact with a carrier was not flagged by a functional HOIA app, including in the cases of President Kersti Kaljulaid, Archbishop Urmas Viilma and the coronavirus outbreak among Isamaa MPs. These prominent cases are but a few examples of the application letting people down.

Unlike the Health Board’s HOIA commercial where actor Karl-Andreas Kalmet says that “you download the app once for a guaranteed layer of protection,” Killar said that HOIA is just one of several measures for keeping the virus in check.

“We are definitely not guaranteeing protection from the virus. HOIA simply helps you to contribute to keeping it under control,” the deputy secretary general said, adding that the app has not led to false feelings of security. Killar gave hardware differences and operation of Bluetooth signal as reasons why people who have the app have not been notified of close contacts.

Users unable to register as infected

Another problem with the application concerns limited ways one can confirm one’s identity. Even if a person has HOIA up and running on a functional smartphone, it could prove impossible to register as a carrier because it requires Smart-ID or Mobile-ID. Killar dismisses the problem.

“We have 500,000 Smart-ID users plus 250,000 Mobile-ID users. We do not believe it to be an obstacle when it comes to registering,” he said, adding that HOIA is very user-friendly and easy to use. Killar said that one area that could be improved concerns the app reporting back in terms of its usefulness.

Marko Kääramees said that it is possible that security and protection of privacy that have been prioritized in HOIA have impacted usability.

“It would have been possible to add the option of registering as COVID-19-positive using a unique code issued by the Health Board for people who do not have access to Smart-ID or Mobile-ID, while this would have required additional development,” Kääramees offered.

Deputy Secretary General Killar said that one-off codes would not be a better solution. “Experience from Europe suggests people make mistakes when entering the codes or are not given codes upon testing positive. There are various problems,” Killar said.

Development stuck

Development of the HOIA application has come to a stop. The Health and Welfare Information Systems Center (TEHIK) that is in charge of the application’s technical side declared a development procurement in early October. It failed. The same procurement has been declared again and bids must be in by February 25.

Killar said that the winner needs to get cross-border exchange of data operational by March for HOIA to work with other similar applications.

Andres Merits said that any development needs to solve tomorrow’s problems instead of tackling past ones. “We need to consider the situation, who will be the principal users once the development is finished. The main user could likely be a person who does not want to or cannot get vaccinated,” Merits said, giving the example of children for whom there are no vaccines.

Jaan Priisalu, analyst at the TalTech Department of Software Science, said that the state should have been more concrete regarding the tender. “There needs to be a reaction mechanism for situations like these where we have a government decision that does not get bogged down in disputes. It might be a poor decision politically but we need one. You cannot be following all peacetime rules in a crisis,” Priisalu said.

Muddled responsibility

There is no clear answer to the question of who owns the HOIA application. Officially, TEHIK is in charge of development and technical support and the social ministry says that the application belongs to the Health Board. “HOIA is a Health Board tool and they are in charge of what we develop next. TEHIK is in charge of tenders and is following Health Board orders so to speak,” Killar said.

Postimees also asked Director of the Health Board Üllar Lanno who owns the HOIA application. Lanno said in no uncertain terms that the board is not in charge of HOIA and that it belongs to the ministry instead. “I do not have answers to any of your questions because I’m not in charge of the app,” Lanno said.

PR manager Andreas Kaju said that cooperation is questionable at best under these circumstances. “In a situation where Lanno and his agency are in charge of solving the public health emergency and where testing, tracking the virus and any corresponding tools such as the application are part of it, he should have the capacity and resources to affect these processes,” Kaju suggested.

Even though HOIA has shortcomings and has been widely criticized, Killar rated the application at nine points out of ten. The deputy secretary general said that the process of how HOIA was created is a success story in itself as a consortium of companies developed a free app for the Estonian state.