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DannyB [soylentnews.org] writes:

Apple and Google are launching a joint COVID-19 tracing tool for iOS and Android [techcrunch.com]

Apple [crunchbase.com] and Google’s engineering teams have banded together to create a decentralized contact tracing tool that will help individuals determine whether they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

Contact tracing is a useful tool that helps public health authorities track the spread of the disease and inform the potentially exposed so that they can get tested. It does this by identifying and ‘following up with’ people who have come into contact with a COVID-19 affected person.

The first phase of the project is an API [crunchbase.com] that public health agencies can integrate into their own apps. The next phase is a system level contact tracing system that will work across iOS and Android [crunchbase.com] devices on an opt-in basis.

The system uses on-board radios on your device to transmit an anonymous ID over short ranges — using Bluetooth beaconing. Servers relay your last 14 days of rotating IDs to other devices which search for a match. A match is determined based on a threshold of time spent and distance maintained between two devices.

If a match is found with another user that has told the system that they have tested positive, you are notified and can take steps to be tested and to self quarantine.

[ . . . . ] you run into technical problems like Bluetooth power suck, privacy concerns about centralized data collection and the sheer effort it takes to get enough people to install the apps to be effective.

Two Phase Plan

To fix these issues, Google [crunchbase.com] and Apple teamed up to create an interoperable API that should allow the largest number of users to adopt it, if they choose.

The first phase, a private proximity contact detection API, will be released in mid-May by both Apple and Google for use in apps on iOS and Android.

[ . . . . ] The second phase of the project is to bring even more efficiency and adoption to the tracing tool by bringing it to the operating system level. There would be no need to download an app, users would just opt-in to the tracing right on their device. The public health apps would continue to be supported, but this would address a much larger spread of users.

This phase, which is slated for the coming months, would give the contract tracing tool the ability to work at a deeper level, improving battery life, effectiveness and privacy. If its handled by the system, then every improvement in those areas — including cryptographic advances — would benefit the tool directly.

Alternate source: Apple, Google Bring Covid-19 Contact-Tracing to 3 Billion People [bloomberg.com]

So it's like a dating hookup proximity app for covid-19?

Original Submission