EHTERAZ

Ministry Of Interior - Qatar

About this app

EHTERAZ is the official contact tracing application for the State of Qatar and is owned, operated, and approved by the Ministry of Public Health.
ETHERAZ aims to protect and safeguard the health of citizens, residents, and visitors in the State of Qatar to support the national effort in preventing and reducing the spread of COVID-19.
ETHERAZ has been developed to:
1) Provide alerts or notifications when members of the public are exposed to a suspected, infected, or confined person through prompt, accurate, digital contact tracing.
2) Provide a visual QR code showing infection and/or vaccine status (when available) to other individuals for safe interaction with the wider community.
3) Identify locations with high infection rates in order for the relevant authorities to provide prompt action to prevent further spread and higher risk exposure to members of the public.
4) Provide official announcements on health, social distancing, containment efforts, and up to date COVID-19 statistics.
The Ministry of Public Health wants all users of the application to feel safe when using ETHERAZ and is committed to maintaining each individual’s privacy and confidentiality by using only the necessary minimum amount of information, personal data, and device permissions required to function and protect the citizens and residents of the State of Qatar.
EHTERAZ requires permission to use:
• Bluetooth signals for the exchange of anonymized IDs with devices in close proximity that also have EHTERAZ installed. This information is used for contact tracing to alert individuals who are at risk of infection.
• Background location services to always know where the device is, in order to better identify areas with a high infection rate and take prompt action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
- Permission to write to the file system - required to allow storage of a small, encrypted file which holds a unique ID, QR code, infection status, configuration parameters, and proximity data of other devices using the Application
• Local device storage when not connected to the internet to hold contact and location information until the user is back online.
ETHERAZ is for the benefit of all of us. Working together we can keep our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends, and our families safe.

Contact Tracing in EHTERAZ APP

When two registered users come within Bluetooth range of each other, their EHTERAZ Apps will automatically exchange anonymized ID with devices in close proximity. This information is used for contact tracing to alert individuals who are at risk of infection.

Ratings and reviews

The idea of such an app is very good, however, the technicalities are poor. The app is draining my phone battery and doesn't work without a permission to obtain access to the gallery and calls, which I am not fine with. Moreover, after installing it, I simply cannot control bluetooth on my phone, even if I switch it off, it lights up the screen and switches the bluetooth on itself (!). Not to mention that each notification is renounced many times and whenever comes also lights up the screen.

EDIT: once I turned my VPN off, it was able to send the password and work. Still unhappy with it being a mandatory app however. Have tried multiple times over the past couple of weeks, always says error requesting OTP. Emailed customer service and their mailbox is full, no longer accepting emails. If an app is going to be mandatory and if we will be refused entry to stores without it activated, they need to fix it.

There's no instructions, no explanations, the ToS you have to accept, but can't read it. The battery is drained insanely fast, meaning i have to have my phone fully charged before going outside; not to mention that it slowly kills the phone in this way. And to top it all off, it requires access to photos and calls, which makes no sense at all or it won't start - people are spending money and waiting in queues just to get burner phones to protect their privacy. Is anybody looking into this issue?