Apple, Google give first look at coronavirus tracking tech

Apple and Google have come a step closer to publishing a Corona virus Tracking technology Monday, shows what an app can look like on cell phones, and also shares sample code pieces for local governments.

The contact tracking technology that the two companies have been working on for more than a month is designed to help people alert each other if someone they have had contact with for the past 14 days has COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by it novel corona virus. When the project was first announced, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai promised that the technology would be developed with privacy in mind.

In the examples that Apple and Google have offered for tracking technology, the two companies have shown how users can log in to the system and activate notifications if they are exposed to someone whose corona virus has been confirmed. The companies also showed how health officials can confirm a person’s coronavirus diagnosis by entering a special code on the patient’s phone. As soon as this is the case, the patient is asked if he would like to anonymously warn people he has had contact with in the past two weeks.

The technology identifies people who may have been near a patient by helping Apple iPhones or devices running Google’s Android software communicate with each other using the built-in Bluetooth radio. When someone is diagnosed with coronavirus, a health care provider or doctor can enter a code on their phone that sends a new signal that notifies all phones that they have had contact with in the past 14 days.

Apple and Google will publish the project later this yearand offers it for around 2 billion phones around the world. In the meantime, they share code and release trial versions of their iOS and Android operating system software to help health officials get started. Apple has since announced that it will encourage health officials to create only one app per country to prevent people from getting confused about which apps to use. Apple and Google say that this will also promote wider acceptance.

Apple and Google’s efforts are just the latest in the way large technology companies tackle the corona virus killed almost 250,000 people worldwideand infected more than 3.5 million people, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Truly, the life sciences branch of Google’s parent company Alphabet launched a website earlier this year that provides information about virus testing to people in California. On the website, which was developed in collaboration with the White House, people can fill in symptoms and fill out an online screener. Apple also has built a website and app to inform people about the corona virus.

In addition, both companies have added prominent links to coronavirus information in their respective news aggregation apps and homepages. And both have started to manufacture and distribute protective equipment for healthcare workers.

On Monday, the two companies also discussed how they will control who has access to the technology and how the companies ensure people’s privacy. The companies said in a phone call to journalists that they will now allow health officials to collect location information or run targeted ads in the app.

Public refinements

Apple and Google began sharing details about their project about two weeks after they started, an unusual move for the notoriously secret companies. The companies have too made regular calls Use the press to answer questions from the press and answer data protection concerns, questions about how the system works and how it is used by users.

The biggest changes that Apple and Google have made since then system first announced last month was to protect privacy after security experts and journalists raised concerns about how the technology would work. Apple and Google said last month You have changed the encryption technologyAll of the identifying information is encrypted to ensure that people cannot be tracked. The companies also said that they will also protect potentially identifiable information, e.g. B. which phone model you are using and the signal strength of your transmissions.

The companies have also changed the name of the system. Initially it was called “Contact tracking“Technology. In the past, contact tracking has been a process in which health officials try to find someone with whom a confirmed infected patient has come in contact and who may be exposed. The Apple and Google system could help automate this. However, analysts found that the name “contact tracking” could worry some users how their information is used from these companies and whether their phones could be used as an instrument for monitoring the mass state.

Apple and Google have now renamed the system. “Exposure notification. “

Unsafe use

The big question that no one seems to have the answer to is how many people will choose the system when it launches later this year. Representatives from Apple and Google said that companies do not know the minimum number of people who have to log in for the system to work, since nothing has been attempted on such a large scale.

However, there are signs that some people want to use these apps. More than 2 million people in Australia downloaded a contact tracking app, called COVIDsafe, within a few days of its launch a few weeks ago. Although it wasn’t created with Apple or Google’s new exposure notification system, it uses similar technology. And in India have hired health officials that workers download the app published in this country.

According to Apple and Google, health officials can create apps for their countries or use the white label code they offer to speed up their technology deployment. Together with Apple’s and Google’s promises of interoperability, this can lead to broader acceptance.

Apple and Google plan to continue to publish changes to their technology on their respective websites on a regular basis and in future discussions with the press.

CNET’s Richard Nieva contributed to this report.