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Today, Apple and Google shared more information about their automatic exposure notification system, including sample interface designs for potential applications and restrictions on how the system will be used.
First introduced on April 10, the Apple and Google system tracks possible cases of COVID-19 via low-energy Bluetooth signals, allowing for retroactive exposure notifications while using encrypted keys to preserve users’ privacy. not exposed. The companies have pledged to discontinue the system as soon as the public health crisis has passed.
The new interface samples give an idea of how those notifications will work in practical terms and exactly how companies plan to ensure proactive consent. Intended for use by developers, they show how specific alerts would appear and when specific API calls should be made.
The companies also share a reference code library (an SDK for Android and an Xcode toolkit for iOS), which the team hopes will serve as “a starting weapon” for application development by health agencies. public. Still, the representatives clarified that the code itself was not intended to be shipped as an application.
The companies declined to name specific public sector partners, but said they had been proactively approached by multiple governments due to their unique OS-level access to Bluetooth systems on smartphones.
The companies also established six specific principles that public sector partners should uphold. In particular, apps can only be used for COVID-19 response efforts, they will be restricted from using Location Services, and will require consent to acceptance before accessing the API or sharing a positive diagnosis. Nor will they allow any form of targeted advertising in the resulting applications; Any existing application that uses targeted advertising or location services will need to disable those systems before accessing the API.
In a new twist, companies plan to restrict access to a single application per country in an effort to avoid fragmentation. But the wording of the principle leaves the door open to countries like the USA. USA Where the response has been directed by the states.
“If a country has opted for a regional or state approach,” reads the restriction, “companies are prepared to support those authorities.”
