Apple and Google are building a coronavirus tracking system into iOS and Android
Apple and Google announced a system for tracking the spread of the new coronavirus, allowing users to share data through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transmissions and approved apps from health organizations.
The new system, which is laid out in a series of white papers, would use short-range Bluetooth communications to establish a voluntary contact-tracing network, keeping extensive data on phones that have been in close proximity with each other. Official apps from public health authorities will get access to this data, and users who download them can report if they’ve been been diagnosed with COVID-19. The system will also alert people who download them to whether in close contact with an infected person.
Apple and Google will introduce a pair of iOS and Android APIs in mid-May and make sure these health authorities’ apps can implement them. In the months after those are complete, the companies will work on building tracing functionality into the underlying operating system, then let users decide whether to share information with a wider range of apps.
Contact tracing is one of the most promising solutions for containing COVID-19, but it also raises massive privacy concerns. Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union raised concern about tracking users with phone data, arguing that any system would need to be limited in scope and avoid compromising user privacy.
Unlike some other tracking methods — like, say, using GPS data — this Bluetooth plan wouldn’t track people’s physical location. It would basically pick up the signals of nearby phones at 5-minute intervals and store the connections between them in a database. If one person tests positive for the novel coronavirus, they could tell the app they’ve been infected, and it could notify other people whose phones passed within close range in the preceding days.
The method still has potential weaknesses. In crowded areas, it could flag people in adjacent rooms who aren’t actually sharing space with the user, making people worry unnecessarily It’s also a relatively new program, and Apple and Google are still talking to public health authorities and other stakeholders about how to run it.
Developing…
Apple and Google announced a system for tracking the spread of the new coronavirus, allowing users to share data through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transmissions and approved apps from health organizations. The new system, which is laid out in a series of white papers, would use short-range Bluetooth communications to…
