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Google and Apple unveiled a joint initiative on Friday to develop a coronavirus smartphone “contact tracking” tool that could alert people when they have come across an infected person.
The move brings together the largest mobile operating systems in an effort to use smartphone location technology to track and potentially contain the global COVID-19 outbreak.
The move would allow applications to be created that allow smartphones powered by Apple software and the Google-supported Android operating system to exchange information with a joint “subscription system” that uses Bluetooth wireless technology.
Next month, the companies plan to launch software interface technology to enable interoperability, so that an alert works regardless of the operating system.
“All of us at Apple and Google believe there has never been a more important time to work together to solve one of the world’s most pressing problems,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The move comes with governments around the world studying or implementing measures to use smartphone location technology to identify people with the virus and prevent them from infecting others, even when efforts raise privacy and privacy concerns. civil liberties.
United States President Donald Trump said during a briefing that the government would take “a very strong look” at the contact-seeking collaboration.
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Privacy price?
Apple and Google argued that “privacy, transparency and consent” were the top priorities in the joint initiative, addressing concerns about systems that could reveal personal data about people.
“Contact tracing can help curb the spread of COVID-19 and can be done without compromising user privacy,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a tweet.
Tracking people’s movements using their smartphones, while a tempting and powerful tool to contain the coronavirus comes with privacy concerns and fears regarding how data may be misused.
“No contact tracking app can be fully effective until there is widespread, free and rapid testing and equitable access to healthcare. These systems also cannot be effective if people don’t trust them,” said Jennifer Granick of American Civil Liberties. Union in a statement.
“People will only trust these systems if they protect privacy, remain voluntary, and store data on an individual’s device, not in a central repository.”
Also read: Google publishes location data to show if coronavirus blocks work in 131 countries
Apple and Android combined essentially power the world’s smartphones, so it would be necessary to work together to effectively track coronavirus contacts based on mobility data, according to analysts.
Apple has long made user privacy a selling point for iPhones, and is bringing those credentials to the coronavirus collaboration, said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies.
“Apple is providing its privacy seal, of some kind, to what is being done,” Milanesi said. “That is good.”
However, neither Apple nor Google can guarantee what ultimately becomes mobility data collected for the coronavirus-fighting effort, said Moor Insights and Strategy analyst Patrick Moorhead.
“The ecosystems of these two companies come together and you have literally 100 percent of the mobile data,” said Moorhead.
Tracking technology or digital contacts has played a “visibly visible” role in pandemic responses from South Korea, Singapore, Israel and other nations, law professor and privacy researcher Ryan Calo said in a testimony in the Senate. this week.
“I understand the intuition behind digital contact tracking,” Calo said in prepared comments.
“But I see the gains in fighting the virus as unproven, and the potential for unintended consequences, misuse, and invasion of privacy and civil liberties is significant.”
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