Posted on 05/16/2020 10:58:05 AM PDT by DoodleBob
(TNS) — From France to Australia to North Dakota, government apps designed to help authorities track and slow the spread of COVID-19 are struggling to accomplish their goals because of restrictions on data collection built into smartphones by Apple Inc. and Google.
That’s leaving public health officials with few options but to use a system designed by Apple and Google themselves. The tech companies say their tools preserve privacy and work seamlessly on devices used by some 3 billion people.
Here’s the rub: Those same privacy features lock authorities out of collecting information they can use to track the broader spread of virus, spot larger patterns and plan reopenings.
“The exposure app gives you an indication that you’ve been in contact with someone that was positive, but it doesn’t do anything for the health department and its contact-tracing efforts,” ...
Apple and Google even renamed their framework Exposure Notification, signaling that it doesn’t do true contact tracing, the process of tracking a virus from person to person. Instead, it lets individual smartphones keep track of which other handsets they’ve come close to by using Bluetooth wireless signals. If a person notifies the network they have tested positive for COVID-19, everyone they could have infected is issued a warning, if they’ve opted in.
The system does this matching anonymously on each device, rather than in a central database that governments could use to track the disease more broadly — a feature the companies say is more secure and helps quell user concerns about who sees their sensitive health data.
At the same time, the companies are refusing to ease restrictions in their mobile software that are blocking governments from building their own centralized, less private apps for contact tracing.
(Excerpt) Read more at govtech.com ...
How long before they want to chip us?
Interesting. This is the first admission that Apple and Google do not follow their own privacy guarantees, and have ways around it.
Glad I never needed a cell phone. Thinking anyone that wants to come see me will have to leave their cell phone behind. Otherwise, too bad so sad, lol.
If they’re tracking, it’s not private...it’s intrusive....and violates right to privacy.
They want to chip you . . . and your little dog Toto too.
We are already chipped thru our phones
Apple and Google’s COVID-19 tracking system will make its full US debut in new Virginia app
Thank you. And the hits they just keep on comin’...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.