Google and Apple have updated their COVID-19 contact-tracing tool to make it possible to notify users of potential exposures to the novel coronavirus without an app.
The new Exposure Notifications Express spec is baked into iOS 13.7, which emerged this week and will appear in an Android update due later this month.
This is not, repeat not, pervasive Bluetooth surveillance. The tool requires users to opt in, although public health authorities can use the tool to send notifications suggesting that residents do so.
Those who choose to participate agree to have their device use Bluetooth to search for other nearby opted-in devices, with an exchange of anonymised identifiers used to track encounters. If a user tests positive, and agrees to notify authorities, other users will be told that they are at risk and should act accordingly.
The update is designed to let health authorities use Bluetooth-powered contact-tracing without having to build their own apps. It’s still non-trivial to play, as the system requires one server to verify test results and another to run both contact-tracing apps and the app-free service.
Apple has published a succinct explainer here and Google has offered up code for notifications server on GitHub.
A couple of dozen US states have signed up for the new tool but other jurisdictions – among them India, Singapore and Australia – are persisting with their own approaches on the basis that the Apple/Google tech makes it harder for their manual contact-tracers to access information.
Source: COVID-19 tracing without an app? There’s an iOS and Android update for that • The Register
Considering the work both companies do with China and other friendly states, it would not surprise me that the “user opt in” feature becomes an “all users opt in without their knowing because the state is the people and the state knows best” feature in some places.
Robin Edgar
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