Apple, Google plan software to slow virus, joining global debate on tracking
Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google said they will work together to create contact tracing technology that aims to slow the spread of the coronavirus by allowing users to opt into logging other phones they have been near.
Friday’s rare collaboration between the two Silicon Valley companies, whose operating systems power 99% of the world’s smartphones, could accelerate usage of apps that aim to get potentially infected individuals into testing or quarantine more quickly and reliably than existing systems in much of the world. Such tracing will play a vital role in managing the virus once lockdown orders end, health experts say.
The planned technology also throws the weight of the tech leaders into a global conflict between privacy advocates who favor a decentralized system to trace contacts and governments in Europe and Asia pushing centralized approaches that have technical weaknesses and potentially let governments know with whom people associate.
“With Apple and Google, you get all the public health functions you need with a decentralized and privacy-friendly app,” said Michael Veale, University College London legal lecturer involved in European contact tracing system DP3T. Centralized solutions such as those proposed in Britain and Germany would no longer work under the new technology, he said.
To be effective, the Silicon Valley system would require millions of people to opt in the system, trusting the technology companies’ safeguards, as well as smooth oversight by public health systems.
The companies said they started developing the technology two weeks ago to streamline technical differences between Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Android that had stymied the interoperation of some existing contact tracing apps.
Under the plan, users’ phones with the technology will emit unique Bluetooth signals. Phones within about six feet can record anonymous information about encounters.
People who test positive for the virus can opt to send an encrypted list of phones they came near to Apple and Google, which will trigger alerts to potentially exposed users to seek more information. Public health authorities would need to sign off that an individual has tested positive before they can send on the data.
The logs will be scrambled to keep infected individuals’ data anonymous, even to Apple, Google and contact tracing app makers, the companies said. Apple and Google said their contact tracing system will not track GPS location.
“To their credit, Apple and Google have announced an approach that appears to mitigate the worst privacy and centralization risks,” Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said.
She added that the companies could have more safeguards such as specifying that contract tracing features would not be used beyond the current pandemic.