Tech giants Apple Inc and Google have announced a partnership to solve the world’s most pressing problem of the century -`the novel Coronavirus.’ They will build a system for tracking the spread of Coronavirus. Users will be able to opt into a system that tracks their location and proximity to others via Bluetooth technology. This data will initially be made accessible to official apps of public health authorities. In India, the government has also gone ahead and build the Arogya Setu App.
The two Silicon Valley companies make the world’s dominant smartphone operating systems for iPhones and Android devices.
Since COVID-19 can be transmitted through close proximity to affected individuals, public health officials have identified contact tracing as a valuable tool to help contain its spread. A number of leading public health authorities, universities, and NGOs are working on this. But doing this manually is an uphill laborious and almost impossible task. Health officials go to recent contacts of an infected person and ask them to self-quarantine or get tested. This is proving to be dangerous for medical officials who can contract the virus.
So, that’s where technology can bridge the gap.
If a user reports that they have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the system will alert those who have been in close contact with the infected person within a certain time period. Here technology critics have raised concerns about privacy and individual data protection.
The press statement clarified, “Privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in this effort, and we look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders. As per information, the technology will not track the identity or location of users but will capture data when users’ phone have been close to each other
The two tech giants will introduce IOS and Android APIs with enabled interoperability using apps from public health authorities. This should happen by mid-May. Health authorities across the world grappling with this pandemic can implement them into their own apps; which will be downloadable through the respective app stores.
Read more at https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility