VANCOUVER -- As governments across Canada and around the world weigh the benefits of various smartphone applications for COVID-19 contact-tracing, a Vancouver-based company says its app should be a leading candidate.
Mimik Technology has been working on ways to replicate the convenience of "the cloud" while maintaining user privacy for the last nine years, according to its CEO Fay Arjomandi.
"When COVID-19 started and people started talking about contact tracing ... we realized that privacy was going to be a huge issue in adoption. Rightfully so," Arjomandi told CTV News Vancouver.
The company's app, called "Pandimik," enables users' smartphones to act as their own servers, rather than relying on a central, cloud server to relay their information.
"This is basically the next evolution of cloud for the next generations of applications," Arjomandi said. "Data remains on the user's device directly … Your user information doesn't go into the cloud and doesn't get stored there. It's already on your device and it's encrypted."
Arjomandi said the company has done a demo of its app for federal health officials and is waiting to learn if it will be selected as the app the federal government recommends for use nationwide.
