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Smartphone software makers Alphabet, Google and Apple will have to convince the public that any contact tracking technology to track who has been exposed to the new coronavirus will not lead to a violation of their privacy, Senator Richard said Wednesday. Blumenthal.
US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) speaks to journalists at the end of the day as Trump’s impeachment trial continues in Washington, USA. USA, January 27, 2020. REUTERS / Brendan McDermid / File Photo
WASHINGTON: Smartphone software makers Alphabet, Google and Apple will have to convince the public that any contact tracking technology to track who has been exposed to the new coronavirus will not lead to a breach of their privacy, it said on Wednesday. Senator Richard Blumenthal.
“Apple and Google have a lot of work to do to convince a legitimately skeptical public that they are completely serious about the privacy and security of their contact search efforts,” it said in a statement.
A critical factor in reopening economies closed by the coronavirus pandemic is the ability to identify who has come into contact with carriers so that public health officials can control the resurgence of the COVID-19 disease caused by the virus.
This contact search effort received a boost recently when Google and Apple said they were collaborating on technology to help identify people who had come across a contagious person and alert them.
“I urgently want to know how Apple and Google will ensure that consumers’ privacy interests are strongly balanced with the legitimate needs of public health officials during the coronavirus pandemic,” said Blumenthal, who has been outspoken about privacy concerns. raised by powerful technology companies. .
“A public health crisis cannot be a pretext to flatten our privacy laws or legitimize the intrusive collection of data from technology companies about the personal lives of Americans,” he said.
Apple and Google did not comment on Blumenthal’s comments, but noted a joint statement that “privacy, transparency and consent are of utmost importance.”
The companies said they began developing the technology in March to streamline the technical differences between Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android that had hampered the interoperation of some existing contact tracking apps.
The companies said the technology, planned to launch in mid-May, would not track users’ locations but their interactions, that interactions would be anonymized and that nothing would be monetized.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told Snapchat’s “Good Luck America” that he had not spoken to Google or Apple, but believed that the public would accept contact tracking applications. more easily if they were not administered by the federal government.
“I think they would feel better if it were private,” he said.
Apple and Google have taken many positive steps to protect privacy, said Sara Collins, political adviser to advocacy group Public Knowledge.
“While this is a promising first step, there are other controls that will need to be put in place to make this truly privacy-protective,” he said, including limits on sharing and deleting data once it is no longer needed.
(Reports by Diane Bartz; edition by Jonathan Oatis and Sonya Hepinstall)
