A coronavirus contact tracking app for Northern Ireland will be launched next week.
Dan West of the Department of Health said the release of Stop Covid NI was supported by the executive.
The app will integrate the phone-based contact tracking program already in place.
Northern Ireland will be the first part of the UK to have a contact tracking app.
The Republic of Ireland app was launched in early July.
Both apps were designed by the Nearform company.
West, head of digital information at the Department of Health, said the NI app will automatically notify close contacts.
It would also identify people at risk of infection who would be impossible to trace through the traditional method.
The app could start as soon as July 29th.
It comes as the Northern Ireland executive announced a further easing of blocking restrictions since Friday.
"Bluetooth Handshake"
After a positive result of the Covid-19 test, a person will receive a unique code via text message.
That message will invite the person to enter the code if they use the app.
Entering the code will activate a "Bluetooth handshake", allowing the app to notify any other user who has been nearby for the time necessary to be at risk of infection.
"There will be some people who will not be able or unwilling to use the app, which is fine," said West West.
"The more people use it, the greater the protection for the whole community. We can say for sure."
The app will initially be intended for over 18s, due to a conflict between data protection laws and the need for an identifiable consent for safeguarding.
Dr Eddie O'Neill of the Health and Social Care Council meets with the Commissioner for Children, the Commissioner's Information Office and the Children's Law Center to find a solution.
Health Minister Robin Swann previously claimed that his department was working with his counterpart in the Republic of Ireland.
The ambition was to make the two systems work in tandem, so the contact information that needs to be traced can be shared by both governments.
The contact tracking program has been operating in Northern Ireland since mid-May.
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It implies that people with a positive test result are contacted by phone.
People who have been less than 2m for 15 minutes or more are called and advised to isolate or be tested if they have symptoms.
The app is an add-on to this, to help with contact tracking and alert those who may not be easily contacted.
West said the development and operation of the app in Northern Ireland "are orders of magnitude cheaper than the efforts made so far in England to develop their app."
He said it would cost less than £ 1 million to build and operate.
The UK government is working on developing an app for use in the rest of the country.
In England an SSN team spent four months and nearly £ 12 million developing an app that was tested on the Isle of Wight but didn't work as expected.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock then announced that the new focus would be on a decentralized app using the Google Apple toolkit, but was unlikely to be ready for months.
