London-based tech firm Agitate has created INK C-19, a free open-source Progressive Web App (PWA) designed to enable communities to monitor COVID-19 locally and globally.

The not-for-profit app allows individuals to easily state and update their health status in relation to the coronavirus and to see this data displayed anonymously on a map.

INK C-19 is designed to work in addition to other tools, with the aim of providing a more global outlook for local benefit. The service is supported with mapping and cloud hosting from partners including Mapbox and Netlify.

Agitate is an FCA regulated digital payments and identity verification firm with expertise in privacy and digital identity.

Steve Winyard, CMO of Agitate, said: “INK C-19 has been designed and developed to help local communities in the response to COVID-19.

“We believe that the best, most secure way of doing this is through publicly sourced pseudonymous data used to build heat maps of people’s symptoms in local areas.

Our app is open source and free to use by any trusted health service or government authority around the world.

“We’re already developing a picture of what the spread of COVID-19 looks like in major cities across the UK, including the likes of Cardiff and Manchester, through our anonymised heat maps.

What’s more, with support for 26 languages built-in, we already have active users in 40+ countries around the world – proof of the rapid global response that tools like ours could empower.”

The tool is open-sourced, with the aim being for any government, health service, local authority or trusted third party to be able to benefit from the publicly sourced anonymised data sourced to help them better plan and monitor for the outbreak.

The publicly sourced information will also provide local communities with invaluable information on the spread and symptoms that are in their area and allows anyone to see trends on a heat map across the world.

Steve added: “While countries including the UK may soon be ‘over the peak’ of the virus, the reality is that we’re going to be living with the effects of the outbreak for a long time yet.

In the near future, we know that governments will want to be able to trace the spread of the virus and find areas which could cause further outbreaks.

“We’re confident that our non-intrusive approach using anonymous data to build heat maps is the foundation for this in the weeks and months to come.”