Apple and Google launched a major joint effort to leverage smartphone technology to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
New
software the companies plan to add to phones would make it easier to
use Bluetooth wireless technology to track down people who may have been
infected by coronavirus carriers.
Software developers have already created such apps in
countries including Singapore and China to try to contain the pandemic.
In Europe, the Czech Republic says it will release such an app this
month. Britain, Germany and Italy are among other countries developing
such apps. [ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ]
Privacy and civil liberties activists have warned that such apps
need to be designed so governments cannot abuse them to track their
citizens. Apple and Google plan say user privacy and security are baked
into the design of their plan.
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Security experts also note that technology alone cannot
effectively track down and identify people who may have been infected by
COVID-19 carriers. Such efforts will require other tools and teams of
public health care workers to track people in the physical world, they
say. In South Korea and China, such efforts have included the use of
credit-card and public-transit records.
Coronavirus outbreak: Google releases location data to determine if COVID-19 lockdowns are working
Given the great need for effective
contact-tracing _ a tool epidemiologists have long employed to contain
infectious disease outbreaks — the companies will roll out their changes
in two phases. In the first, they will release software in May that
lets public health authorities release apps for both Android and iOS
phones. In the coming months, they will also build this functionality
directly into the underlying operating systems.
On Friday, the
companies released preliminary technical specifications for the effort,
which they called “Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing.”
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