If there is ever a time for Apple and Google to come together on a common purpose, it is now. It is amazing to see Apple and Google pledging Bluetooth level OS integrations to enable contact tracing.
Here’s a section from Joint press release:
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 around the world have been doing important work to develop opt-in contact tracing technology. To further this cause, Apple and Google will be launching a comprehensive solution that includes application programming interfaces (APIs) and operating system-level technology to assist in enabling contact tracing.
Apple and Google are going to implement this in 2 stages – First, in May, both companies will release APIs that enable interoperability between Android and iOS devices using apps from public health authorities. These official apps will be available for users to download via their respective app stores.
Second, in the coming months, Apple and Google will work together to enable a broader Bluetooth-based contact tracing platform by building this functionality into the underlying platforms.
Apple published a draft technical documentation detailing out the privacy and security aspects of the implementation. While the details are not very clear at this point, here’s how this might work:
How will this Work?
Let us say, Ben and Tom own an iPhone and a Google Pixel respectively. Both Ben’s and Tom’s phones generate a new code every 15 minutes. The codes generated by these phones are stored locally. These codes are never uploaded anywhere and don’t leave their respective phones.
Now, let’s say, Ben and Tom came close to each other at a grocery store during which both their phones exchanged these codes (This will happen automatically when they come close based on their proximity.) Ben, now has Tom’s code and Tom has Ben’s code.
A few days later, if Ben is tested positive for COVID-19, he can press an alert button on his phone. Ben’s phone, now uploads the codes of all the phones his phone came in contact within the last 14 days to a server. (Let us call these vulnerable codes) This will contain Tom’s code as well.
Tom’s phone will immediately recognize this from the server and alerts him with a notification saying, he recently came in close contact with a COVID-19 Positive patient and he might be vulnerable.
(Nobody except Tom’s phone can recognize that code on the server as his. A hacker who can hack and get the list of all the vulnerable codes from the server cannot do anything with these codes.)
As next steps, if Tom has symptoms, he can immediately get himself tested and if tested positive can press alert button himself. If not, he can self quarantine himself for 14 days to be absolutely sure he’s not out there spreading the virus.
If you paid attention, you’ll observe that unlike many contact tracing apps that are out there, this implementation will not capture your location data at any given moment. All the system captures is a temporary bluetooth code which is stored locally on your device. This gets uploaded to the server (only the temporary code, no personal information or any information that a hacker can trace back to an individual is uploaded) only when someone presses an alert button.
For a disease that is contagious with an R naught of over 2 combined with latent display of symptoms, this technology, if properly implemented – which Apple and Google say will be exposed as an API to 3rd Party developers as well – can be a game changer in enabling contact tracing and containing the spread.
There are surely some questions and important considerations – on how the system would detect naughty outliers from pressing alert button even though they aren’t tested positive – the details of which are vague at this point. Will the app ask a user to upload a report to prove the authenticity of the information being provided? Or will Apple and Google partner with testing facilities around the world to identify whether a person is truly tested positive? are questions we don’t have answers to at this point.
Strange times make for strange partners, but this is clearly a problem Apple and Google are fully committed to solve.
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