{"id":12075,"date":"2020-04-17T14:18:19","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T18:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/?p=12075"},"modified":"2020-05-21T11:12:34","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T15:12:34","slug":"how-apple-and-googles-coronavirus-tracking-technology-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/how-apple-and-googles-coronavirus-tracking-technology-works\/","title":{"rendered":"How Apple and Google\u2019s coronavirus-tracking technology works"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Apple and Google held a joint press conference on Monday to explain their recently announced collaboration<\/a> on a phone-based approach to tracking\u2014and then interrupting\u2014the spread of coronavirus.<\/p>\n

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The companies are making changes to their respective mobile operating systems to allow iOS and Android devices to use Bluetooth to detect and record when they come within 10-15 feet of any other iOS or Android device (provided its owner has opted in). If you use the app and anyone you\u2019ve encountered\u00a0later tests positive for coronavirus, your phone will alert you of that fact.<\/p>\n

By implementing this technology, the companies are digitizing an old, arduous epidemiological process called \u201ccontact tracing,\u201d in which health workers trace the transmission of the disease from patient zero to any person with whom they may have come in contact. The lines begin spreading out like a tree from the original carrier as days pass and new contacts occur. The goal is to catch up with the spread of the disease, then change the behavior of the most recent infectees so that they can\u2019t pass it on. Historically, this has all been done through hard shoe-leather detective work.<\/p>\n

The new system \u201cdigital contact tracing\u201d takes advantage of a device that\u2019s always with us to track the course of a disease. The two companies say that in phase one of their project, which will begin rolling out in mid-May, users will need to download an app developed by a public health agency. That app will be able to access the digital contact tracing data collected by the phones. In phase two, the companies will build the functionality deeper into their operating systems so that users no longer have to download an app to start contact tracing. They just opt in.<\/p>\n

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During the whole process, no personal identification data or location data is transmitted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Let\u2019s say that 10 days after I download the app and start tracing (meaning my phone is both broadcasting a crypto-code to identify itself to other phones and receiving the same from other phones around me). I test positive for coronavirus. I would then report that fact to a secure server managed by Google and Apple. The server would then alert the phones of anybody with whom I\u2019d come in contact in the last 14 days (people can carry the virus for 14 days before showing symptoms). The person who receives such an alert would go to the health agency app they downloaded and find instructions on what to do. This may mean self-quarantining, getting tested, or going in for treatment.<\/p>\n

Privacy advocates have raised concerns<\/a> about some of the other ways technology could be used to track the virus\u2019s spread. Apple and Google spokespeople stressed that during the whole process no personal identification data or location data is transmitted. They point out that they are using their control over two widely used mobile operating systems to capture and provide data to public health authorities.<\/p>\n

The 800-pound gorillas move in<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, others are left out. There are numerous contact tracing apps in existence, many of them from non-governmental organizations. These developers will be left out of Google and Apple\u2019s program. They\u2019ll neither be able to contribute tracking data nor receive it from Apple\u2019s and Google\u2019s API.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A Google spokesperson said that the tracking data should be restricted to organizations that are legally allowed to practice public health. The person said third-party apps have struggled to do much good, because they can\u2019t bridge device types or operating systems. Of course, the virus recognizes no such barriers. So the third-party apps fail to track a large enough pool of people to prevent the disease from moving through a population.<\/p>\n

If anybody can reach a critical mass of people with a smartphone-based effort it\u2019s Google and Apple, which control the two most popular mobile operating systems in the world. The companies cite one study saying that contract tracing can stop the momentum of a disease if the effort is large enough to track 50% to 60% of the population. Even with less participation the effort can slow the advance of the disease enough to avoid overloading health providers, one spokesman said.<\/p>\n

But for people to willingly allow such tracking, they\u2019ll have to trust that Apple and Google have only good intentions. Making that case was perhaps the biggest reason for Monday\u2019s press call. The companies\u2019 representatives said over and over, in many different ways, that the initiative won\u2019t betray the privacy of the participants, or allow the tracking data to somehow be repurposed later on. Some privacy advocates have their doubts<\/a>. I suspect most people won\u2019t worry much about Apple\u2019s intentions, but they may feel a little less secure about being tracked by Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apple and Google held a joint press conference on Monday to explain their recently announced collaboration on a phone-based approach to tracking\u2014and then interrupting\u2014the spread of coronavirus.The companies are making changes to their respective mobile operating systems to allow iOS and Android devices to use Bluetooth to detect and record when they come within 10-15…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12075"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16474,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12075\/revisions\/16474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}