Security News > 2021 > May > Singapore bolsters Bluetooth contact-tracing as new COVID wave sends students and workers home again
Singapore has made its Bluetooth-powered "TraceTogether" contact-tracing app its preferred means of recording movements in public spaces across the island.
The nation's effort, "TraceTogether" used Bluetooth to detect the proximity of other users, recorded such interactions and allowed contact with users in the event they had come into contact with a COVID-carrier.
Singapore later added a dedicated TraceTogether token that did the same job, but for those who don't or would rather not use a smartphone.
In May 2020 Singapore added another system called SafeEntry that required businesses to checks visitors into and out of their premises using their smartphones and a QR code.
Singapore has been giving out "Safe Entry Gateway Boxes" that allow check-in by merely waving a smartphone or token and waiting for a green light to appear.
Extensive contact tracing alongside COVID testing have largely succeeded at keeping the pandemic under control in Singapore, after a two-month lockdown from April 2020 quelled an outbreak that was amplified in foreign worker dormitories and saw almost half of their 323,000 residents testing positive for COVID at some point in time.