Apple and Google Unite to Develop COVID-19 Contact Tracing Technology

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Apple and Google traditionally have been two of the biggest rivals in the tech world, competing on products ranging from iOS vs. Android, iPhone vs. Pixel phone, Chromebook vs. MacBook, Safari vs. Chrome, Siri vs. Google Assistant, and plenty more.

Now Apple and Google are uniting against a common enemy — COVID-19 (also known as Coronavirus). These two tech giants have announced a partnership to develop technology that can be used to help stop the spread of infection.

On Friday, Apple and Google released a joint statement announcing that they’re working jointly to develop technology that may help stop the spread of COVID-19.

This new technology can help people know when they’ve been near a person who has been diagnosed with COVID-19. The tech will work on iPhones and Android phones to alert people who have been nearby someone who has tested positive for the virus and help them to know what to do next.

Other COVID-19 articles:

• Free Stuff to Help You While Social Distancing
• 12 Ways Tech Can Help with Social Distancing
• Apple Launches COVID-19 Screening App and Website Based on CDC Guidance
• Google Launches New Coronavirus/COVID-19 Resources

Contact Tracing

Health authorities can use contact tracing to determine the possible spread of the virus from an infected patient and warn those who might be at risk of infection from others. With contact tracing, health authorities ask patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 to list people who have been in close contact with them during the past 14 days so they can notify those people and have them self-quarantine.

But patients may not recall everyone that they’ve been in contact with during the past 14 days. Or they may not know who the people were, or perhaps the patients are unaware the names of all the people who were in close contact with them.

If the patient rode a train, shopped in a store, walked on a crowded sidewalk, or were around people in the general public, that patient may not have any idea of the names of everyone they were in contact with.

Apple and Google are hoping to solve that problem.

How the Apple/Google COVID-19 Technology Works

Apple and Google are developing technology that can be used on iPhones and Android phones that would connect phones via Bluetooth to keep track of which phones have been close by within the past 14 days. The same Bluetooth technology that you may use to connect your phone to your car, headphones, fitness tracker and/or your smartwatch will soon be used to let people know when they’ve been exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

Figuring that people are usually quite close to their phones, Apple and Google are developing contact tracing technology that would use phones to keep track of other phones have been nearby in the past two weeks. Phones would share anonymous identifying information, called beacon keys, when they are in Bluetooth range of other phones using this technology. A list of shared beacon keys would be retained for the past 14 days.

This opt-in contact tracing service could then be used to alert people when someone who’s been in close contact with in the past 14 days has had a positive test for COVID-19. If a patient tests positive for COVID-19, and that patient has opted into the Apple/Google contact tracing technology, that patient’s beacon key list could be used to notify others of possible exposure to the virus.

People who opt into the technology would have their phones do a daily check of beacon keys of close contacts within the past two weeks, and cross-check it against beacon keys reporting a positive COVID-19 test. If there’s a match, a notification would appear on their phones alerting them that they have been in contact with someone who has been diagnosed with the virus.

These illustrations from Google shows how the technology works:

This technology could help stop the spread of the virus by letting people know when they have been in contact with someone who has tested positive so they know to self-quarantine.

From Apple/Google: “Through close cooperation and collaboration with developers, governments and public health providers, we hope to harness the power of technology to help countries around the world slow the spread of COVID-19 and accelerate the return of everyday life.”

At first, the contact tracing technology would be used in apps released by public health authorities. People who want to participate could download the app and opt in. Apple and Google anticipate having this technology ready in May, then the apps could be developed using the technology.

The second phase of the Apple/Google partnership involves incorporating the technology directly into smartphone operating systems, Apple’s iOS for iPhone and Google’s Android. A future update to iOS and Android would include the contact tracing technology so that people could opt in without having to download an app. Apple and Google say this update will be available “in the coming months.”

Privacy

According to Apple and Google, the information gathered from the phones and the beacon keys would be encrypted and kept anonymous. Because the technology uses Bluetooth to determine who is close by, location services would not keep track of the actual location of people using the technology.

See => How to Know Which Apps Are Tracking Your Location

The companies are developing the technology to be opt-in so that users would have a choice about whether they will participate in contact tracing in this manner.

From Apple and Google: “Privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in this effort, and we look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders. We will openly publish information about our work for others to analyze.

• Explicit user consent required
• Doesn’t collect personally identifiable information or user location data
• List of people you’ve been in contact with never leaves your phone
• People who test positive are not identified to other users, Google or Apple
• Will only be used for contact tracing by public health authorities for COVID-19 pandemic management
• Doesn’t matter if you have an Android phone or an iPhone – works across both”

The importance of maintaining user privacy was emphasized in tweets by the CEOs of Apple and Google:

Contact tracing can help slow the spread of COVID-19 and can be done without compromising user privacy. We’re working with @sundarpichai & @Google to help health officials harness Bluetooth technology in a way that also respects transparency & consent. https://t.co/94XlbmaGZV

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 10, 2020

To help public health officials slow the spread of #COVID19, Google & @Apple are working on a contact tracing approach designed with strong controls and protections for user privacy. @tim_cook and I are committed to working together on these efforts.https://t.co/T0j88YBcFu

— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) April 10, 2020

What Else You Need to Know

This technology is designed to be opt-in, so its success will depend upon the number of people choosing to participate. The more people who use this technology, the more successful it could be. Similarly, receiving no alert wouldn’t be a guarantee that you haven’t been around anyone who has tested positive, as not everyone will be using this technology.

COVID-19 can also be spread by touching an object on which the germs are present, so you potentially could catch the virus without ever being in close contact with someone who was infected.

These alerts could be helpful in areas where testing is scarce and limited to those who have been in contact with COVID-19 patients. You may be able to show the alert to testers in order to prove your exposure to the virus.

If this technology does prove effective in helping to limit the spread of the virus, it could be adapted to help battle other infections beyond COVID-19. Future pandemics could potentially be avoided if contact tracing is used early and effectively.

Update: Apple and Google have clarified that this contact tracing technology will not be able to become government-mandated. See, Business Insider Apple and Google say their coronavirus-tracking tech will remain ‘opt-in’ only, and governments won’t be allowed to require people to use it

For more information on how the Apple/Google COVID-19 technology works, check out The Verge, ANSWERING THE 12 BIGGEST QUESTIONS ABOUT APPLE AND GOOGLE’S NEW CORONAVIRUS TRACKING PROJECT

Poll

Would you use Apple and Google’s new technology to help authorities use contact tracing to prevent the spread of COVID-19? Vote in The Wonder of Tech poll (you can vote for more than one answer):

Your Thoughts

Do you think this Apple and Google partnership could result in technology that will help reduce the spread of COVID-19? Would you opt into this contact tracing technology to help learn when you’ve been near someone who has been diagnosed with the virus? Do you think the use of this technology could help avoid future pandemics?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!

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*Phone image (edited) courtesy of cabashito via Needpix and Creative Commons