Google and Apple Switch Tack On Contact Tracing Technology

✓ Companies will handle more technology to notify people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus. Privacy will not be affected, they say.

  Google and Apple switch tack on contact tracing technology

  Companies will handle more technology to notify people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus. Privacy will not be affected, they say.

  Under a plan announced Tuesday, states will no longer need to create their own apps to alert people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus.

  IN APRIL, APPLE and Google announced a rare act of fraternalism with the tech giant fueled by a global pandemic. His plan took advantage of short-range Bluetooth signals from smartphones. The phones would track, anonymously, other phones that were nearby. When the owner of one of those phones was diagnosed with Covid-19, alerts were sent to other people who had been nearby recently. The idea was to help public health officials locate potentially exposed people more quickly and stop the spread of the virus.

  In America, at least, it was also an experiment in federalism. Apple and Google provided the technical framework, which they call "exposure notification," and guidance on how to use it. But it was up to states to create apps that use the tool and integrate them into their public health response.

     That was before and this is now. Like much of the nation's mosaic pandemic response, letting states work things out individually hasn't worked very well. Almost five months since the initial announcement, only six US states have launched apps using the Apple-Google scheme. Discussions about creating contact tracing apps have been embroiled in battles over privacy and the influence of big tech companies, and uncertainty over how much digital contact tracing would help the overall response to the pandemic. That is especially the case when so many critical items - tests, resources for the infected, manual contact tracing - remain in disarray. So on Tuesday, Google and Apple said they would take matters a little more into their own hands.

  Now, the tech giants will also provide the technology to send and receive alerts, without the need for an external application. Businesses call it Express Exposure Notification. For Apple, the feature will be available starting Tuesday on iOS 13.7, the newest version of Apple's operating system. For Android, Google will create apps for the states that it says will be available later this month. (Google's decision reflects complexities in the Android ecosystem that make it difficult to quickly deliver new features to users.) Apple and Google say their commitment to user privacy is upheld: They won't collect any identifying data, instead relying on anonymous identifiers for tracking. of phones that are close to each other. And while the feature is built into the operating system, iPhone users in states where it's available will need to opt in.

     Apple and Google say the change was based on conversations with state public health authorities, who told the companies they were having difficulty building apps themselves. States will need to opt into the new system by sending the companies basic information, like how to get tested if someone receives an alert and how to reach the local public health authority after a positive test. So far, three states and the District of Columbia have signed on to use the new system—including two, Virginia and Nevada, that had already released custom apps. (The third state is Maryland.) Apple and Google say they are “committed to supporting public health authorities that have deployed or are building custom apps.”

     The new plan unifies some of the behind-the-scenes work of sending exposure notifications. In the original scheme, state health authorities were responsible for setting up servers to send exposure alerts to people who had been near others who had tested positive for Covid-19. Different states, different servers. That meant apps in different states couldn’t easily talk to each other. Now that will be handled by a central server, operated by the Association of Public Health Laboratories. Some existing apps using the Apple-Google system, including those recently released in Wyoming and North Dakota, are already designed to communicate with the association’s server—and thus with other apps.

     The move was not entirely unexpected. When Apple and Google announced their digital tracking plans, they planned to release an update in June that would incorporate elements of the system into their phone's operating systems. As long as people chose to have the feature turned on, the phones would keep an anonymous count of their close contacts. But to receive an exposure notification or send a message of a positive test, people would have to download one of the applications developed by the state.

    Now Apple and Google are getting a little more involved. Which makes sense, given the chaotic state-by-state unfolding. "I think it's great," says Harper Reed, a consultant and former chief technology officer for Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, who co-developed a privacy framework for exposure notification. He says that the fact that only a few states have apps so far, some of which are incompatible, is a disaster. A common interface and technology across all phones could make it easier for states to roll out apps and encourage more people to turn on the feature. Reed says that smartphone contact tracing appears to be working in other countries where it is available nationwide and where there is a strong infrastructure for testing and contact tracing. "I think these applications really work in the right environment, and that's amazing," he says.

 

 Digital contact tracing has been implemented somewhat more seamlessly in countries where the public health response is less fragmented. In places like Ireland and Switzerland, the apps have been available for months and benefit from consistent messages from the national government about the benefits of using them.

  But some people worry that because states and countries will be less likely to create their own apps than to use the default options from Apple and Google, public health officials in those places may learn less about the spread of the disease. , which could complicate your answers. They may also have less control over the functions that are included in the applications. "It can force countries to move in directions that are not the best for their healthcare system and their citizens," says Carmela Troncoso, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology who led the development of the Swiss app.

   In any case, it is still far from clear how much digital contact tracing will move the needle in the US pandemic response. The first hurdle after launching state apps is getting people to sign up for the apps to be effective, something the new plan can help with. But as Apple and Google have said all along, digital contact tracing is a complement to the public health response, a way to expand the reach of contact tracing beyond known contacts to include nearby strangers on a train, or in a crowd, or on a chairlift. To be truly effective, the rest of the public health response - testing, tracing, supporting those in quarantine - must work. And on that front, the United States still has a long way to go.