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(Reuters) – Apps to help contain the spread of the new coronavirus should not collect location data from the user, the European Commission said Thursday, as Apple and Google considered whether to work with virus apps that use location tracking.
The EU executive’s recommendation emerged as part of a unified European approach to using the technology to combat COVID-19 and after several EU countries launched a variety of applications, prompting criticism from privacy activists in data.
Doctors want to be able to identify recent encounters of people diagnosed with the virus to quarantine potentially infected contacts, and an important question is how to do it while respecting privacy rights. Alphabet’s Apple and Google have proposed a system and are considering how to work with other groups that have overlapping goals and methods.
To date, 28 countries around the world have launched contact tracking applications, including 11 European countries, while 11 others are developing applications based on GPS or Bluetooth data, according to an analysis by the Linklaters law firm.
The European Commission said in a statement that the use of the application should be voluntary and not include any type of data that identifies the location of people.
“Location data is neither necessary nor recommended for the purpose of contact tracking applications, as it is not intended to track people’s movements or enforce prescriptions,” the Commission document said, citing risks. security and privacy.
The privacy rights group American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that instead of tracking where a person has gone, apps should use Bluetooth signals exchanged between phones to track encounters.
Apple and Google said last week that they would help public health authorities and others develop applications for Bluetooth-based contact tracking. The two companies will need to grant permission to application developers and health authorities to access the technology.
While Apple and Google’s contact tracking technology itself are not based on location information, both Google and Apple generally allow app developers to collect location information with user permission.
The two companies told Reuters that they are still developing policies on whether to allow contact tracking applications using their new technology to also collect location data.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading US infectious disease expert. The US, told Snap’s news arm in an interview this week that users would likely reject contact tracking apps that collect location data.
Apple and Google declined to comment on Fauci’s comments.
In early April, Americans in a Pew Research Center survey were divided by government tracking of the locations of people who tested positive for the virus, with 52% saying it would be acceptable and 48% saying it would be unacceptable. .
Approximately two-thirds of a country’s population would need to participate for contact tracing to be effective, according to a study by researchers at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute.
The European Commission also said that mobile applications should be based on anonymous data and work with other applications in other EU countries.
He said public health authorities will evaluate the effectiveness of such apps by the end of the month, with EU countries expected to share the comments in May and the EU executive to present a progress report in June.
“Strong privacy safeguards are a prerequisite for the adoption of these applications, and therefore their usefulness,” European Chief Digital Officer Thierry Breton said in a statement.
Breton said he had held a video conference with Google Chief Sundar Pichai and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki on Wednesday to discuss their cooperation with Apple to create contact tracking technology.
Google said it was a good meeting and that the joint effort with Apple was designed to be accepted and meet privacy and security standards.
(Reports of Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Additional reports by Paresh Dave and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Jane Merriman, David Holmes and Jonathan Oatis edition)
