(To watch the full press briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The LeaveHomeSafe mobile app's functions will be enhanced to step up the Government’s anti-epidemic efforts, Deputy Government Chief Information Officer Tony Wong said today.

During a press briefing this afternoon, Mr Wong explained that the new functions would include alerts on venues or locations under compulsory testing orders that would be sent to the user.

He emphasised that the planned enhancements aimed to boost the Government’s capability to combat COVID-19 and would not comprise users’ privacy.

“This mobile app is an exposure notification app. It was never meant to be a contact tracing tool. We did not install any tracing components in the app.

“It is purely a digital tool to assist citizens to record their visit history of different venues and to provide exposure notification, in case he or she had close contact or appeared in the same venue with a confirmed COVID-19 case.”

Mr Wong added that the LeaveHomeSafe mobile app has been downloaded over 2.96 million times, with the majority of downloads in Hong Kong.

“We did a rather comprehensive check of this mobile app’s download rate from around the world. Our finding is that over 97% of the downloads are from Hong Kong app stores. The remaining 2% to 3% are from other app stores around the world.”