Dozens of tracking apps for smartphones are being used or developed to help contain the pandemic, despite concerns about security, privacy, and effectiveness
literally dozens gathering info on people's location or contacts to curb the virus. Can they help? What are the pitfalls? Will people use them? @natashanyt @Aaron_Krolik & I take a look 1/ https://www.nytimes.com/... @profcarroll : The scramble for contact tracing apps is on despite privacy concerns and the lack of evidence they could be effective without mass testing and most of the population downloading them (when a single digit percentage seems likely to do so). https://www.nytimes.com/... @profcarroll : Apple/Google contact tracing toolkit has been released to developers (presumably local authorities). But is it explainable to people how this model protects their privacy to overcome the trust issues that inhibit adoption rates and cause selection bias? https://www.bloomberg.com/... Leo Kelion / @leokelion : This should mean authorities can start to properly compare benefits of Apple/Google design to going it alone beyond just talking about it in theory. Of course real-world tests will be crucial. And manual contact tracing may end up having more impact. Joe Rossignol / @rsgnl : Apple is seeding iOS 13.5 beta 3 today for public health authorities to test its contact tracing API. This is a continuation of iOS 13.4.5 beta 2. The version number has been changed to reflect the release of a new SDK in Xcode 11.5 beta. Leo Kelion / @leokelion : Apple + Google are releasing 1st version of their API building block to health authorities today. This lets them build contact-tracing apps compliant with their “decentralised” model, which gives benefit of being able to do Bluetooth “handshakes” in the background on iPhones. Catalin Cimpanu / @campuscodi : Jaap Haartsen, the Bluetooth inventor, said that Bluetooth was not accurate enough and unsuitable for contact tracing, so it boggles the mind that governments and tech companies are still plowing through with this dumb idea https://www.computable.nl/... https://twitter.com/... David Carroll / @profcarroll : There simply aren't enough Americans willing to install a contact tracing app to make them effective per recent surveys. Nevermind it would take four years at current capacity to test the population. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
The New York Times' survey of the landscape lands at the inflection point: effectiveness depends on mass testing and near-universal adoption that surveys suggest single-digit uptake won't deliver, and Bluetooth co-inventor Jaap Haartsen has called the technology too inaccurate for the job.
First-order effects
Public health authorities choosing among dozens of competing apps now face a fork: keep building bespoke tools or wait for the Apple/Google Exposure Notification API, which within weeks shipped to iOS and Android with at least three US states building on it.
Americans who decline to install — the majority per surveys — make any deployed app epidemiologically weak from day one, shifting the burden back to manual contact tracing, which experts say may have more impact anyway.
Second-order effects
Apple and Google's OS-level API squeezes out independent app makers: governments that built centralized apps must either migrate to the platform standard or accept degraded functionality on iPhones and Android devices they don't control.
India's app, with 75M+ downloads, becomes the cautionary counterexample — privacy advocates warn such infrastructure can persist as state surveillance beyond the pandemic, raising the political cost of adoption elsewhere.
Third-order effects
The US trajectory confirms the structural problem: most states eventually retreated from deployment and the few that launched struggled with adoption, leaving digital tracing a supplement rather than a replacement for manual public health work.
If the pattern holds, smartphone platform vendors — not governments — set the default architecture for public-health data infrastructure, with privacy-by-design constraints written into operating systems rather than legislation.
The trend: Pandemic-era contact tracing is consolidating around Apple and Google's operating-system-level standards, with adoption shortfalls — not app quality — deciding whether digital tracing complements or cedes to manual public health work.
New: We polled Americans on Apple / Google's plan to use smartphones to track the virus' spread. Most said they're unwilling or unable to try it out. That's a huge problem: The fewer people who use it, the worse it'll be. Said one: “I don't trust them” https://www.washingtonpost.…
Today, Apple, Google release the first Covid-19 Contact Tracing/Exposure Notification development tools to app makers. That includes Xcode 11.5, iOS 13.5 beta 3 (changed from 13.4.5), and a beta update from Google Play.
“We've already learned what moving fast and breaking things can do to society” - BKC's Woodrow @Hartzog in the @nytimes ⬇️⬇️ https://www.nytimes.com/...
I don't quite get the “I don't trust them” angle, unless you're someone who doesn't own a smartphone. If you don't trust Google/Apple I have some bad news about the things they could easily already be doing with your Android/iPhone! https://twitter.com/...
EU telco ministers will meet on May 5 about contact-tracing apps. “The discussion should also converge on a common position for conversations with Apple and Google regarding requirements for their APIs,” the Croatian presidency said. (Good luck with that) https://pro.politico.eu/…
When it comes to sharing our data people will gladly hand it out so they can play games & interact on social media. But when it comes to allowing it for a genuine public health emergency... we're all suddenly channeling Richard Stallman. 🙄 https://arstechnica.com/...
So here's the Big Question for re-opening. If you can get people to wear masks, implement physical distancing throughout commercial and social life, & ban gatherings over 50 people (ala Sweden, which is the most relaxed) can you keep Rt < 1 without robust testing/contact tracing?
“I really believe this industry is doing more good than bad,” said Tal Dilian, a former Israeli intelligence officer and now a co-CEO of Cyprus-based Intellexa, a cyber-surveillance firm. “Now is a good time to show that to the world.” https://www.algemeiner.com/...
The lack of trust during a pandemic is telling. As big tech companies use the crisis as an opportunity to try to win back public support, I hope leadership learns from past missteps & recognizes that trust has to be earned through real ethical commitments, not PR campaigns. https…
Imagine if instead of building an app that 60% of Americans won't use, Google & Apple had put funds into health depts so that they could hire contact tracers & asked their software engineers to design platforms to assist human contact tracers handling tons of data. https://twitte…
There's an absolute glut of Covid tracking apps around the world — literally dozens gathering info on people's location or contacts to curb the virus. Can they help? What are the pitfalls? Will people use them? @natashanyt @Aaron_Krolik & I take a look 1/ https://www.nytimes.com/…
The scramble for contact tracing apps is on despite privacy concerns and the lack of evidence they could be effective without mass testing and most of the population downloading them (when a single digit percentage seems likely to do so). https://www.nytimes.com/...
Apple/Google contact tracing toolkit has been released to developers (presumably local authorities). But is it explainable to people how this model protects their privacy to overcome the trust issues that inhibit adoption rates and cause selection bias? https://www.bloomberg.com/…
This should mean authorities can start to properly compare benefits of Apple/Google design to going it alone beyond just talking about it in theory. Of course real-world tests will be crucial. And manual contact tracing may end up having more impact.
Apple is seeding iOS 13.5 beta 3 today for public health authorities to test its contact tracing API. This is a continuation of iOS 13.4.5 beta 2. The version number has been changed to reflect the release of a new SDK in Xcode 11.5 beta.
Apple + Google are releasing 1st version of their API building block to health authorities today. This lets them build contact-tracing apps compliant with their “decentralised” model, which gives benefit of being able to do Bluetooth “handshakes” in the background on iPhones.
Jaap Haartsen, the Bluetooth inventor, said that Bluetooth was not accurate enough and unsuitable for contact tracing, so it boggles the mind that governments and tech companies are still plowing through with this dumb idea https://www.computable.nl/... https://twitter.com/...
There simply aren't enough Americans willing to install a contact tracing app to make them effective per recent surveys. Nevermind it would take four years at current capacity to test the population. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...