Colorado is ending its Exposure Notifications phone app for COVID

It’s time to say RIP to Exposure Notifications, that thing on your phone that, if you enabled it, would sometimes buzz and tell you that you had been near someone who later tested positive for COVID-19.

The service is ending in Colorado on Thursday, according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment. Users will receive a notice on their phones saying that the service is no longer operational and a prompt to delete their app data.

The timing is related to the end of the federal public health emergency for COVID, which also falls on the 11th. A CDPHE spokesman said Apple and Google, which worked together to build the program, are “decommissioning” the service in Colorado. Similar shutdowns of state contact-tracing apps are occurring across the…