The government aims to have ready by the end of June a smartphone application developed for overseas athletes and others coming for this summer's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
The app will play a central role in health management as part of coronavirus countermeasures, and help smooth entry procedures upon arrival in Japan among other functions.
About 100,000 people involved with the Olympics, including athletes, are expected to come to Japan. In the app's core function of health management, users will enter their daily body temperature and other vital information, and the government will manage the data centrally to prevent the spread of infection.
The app will also include a function that enables users to periodically report their location in order for the government to confirm their whereabouts.
The app will allow users to fill in documents such as entry cards, which are currently handwritten at the time of entry into Japan, while still in the airplane. At the time of departure, a certificate for a negative PCR test result will be issued through the app, making it usable upon re-entering their home country.
The functions are being readied for when inbound tourism recovers after the coronavirus is contained, and will be available even after the Olympics.
The government developed the app under an initial estimate of about 1.2 million visitors coming to Japan over the Olympic and Paralympic period.
However, after the decision was made in March not to allow spectators from overseas at the venues, the government decided to forego a planned function for directing spectators at competition sites. Likely to be deleted is another function that would have allowed users to apply for a visa through the app prior to departing their home countries.
The government is hoping to change the contract terms with the app developer and reduce the costs from the original estimate of about 7.3 billion yen.
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