Coronavirus: Apple, Google to create contact tracing technology to fight spread

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple and Alphabet's Google said on Friday that they will work together to create contact tracing technology that aims to slow the spread of the coronavirus by allowing users to opt into a system that catalogs other phones they have been near.

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 smooth operation of some existing contact tracing apps. The logs will be scrambled to keep infected individuals'data anonymous, even to Apple and Google, the companies said.The set-up aims to address privacy concerns that have forestalled aggressive mobile location tracking and other surveillance measures aimed at preventing new outbreaks.

However, Apple and Google also plan to release software updates in the coming months so that users do not have to download any apps to begin logging nearby phones. Governments worldwide have been scrambling to develop or evaluate software meant to improve the normally labor-intensive process of contact tracing, in which health officials go to recent contacts of an infected person and ask them to self-quarantine or get tested.

The companies' system may use data on the strength of Bluetooth signals to estimate how closely users came into contact with infected people and for how long, which could help estimate the risk they caught the virus.

China already have it !!!

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