Utah will officially launch a COVID-19 contact tracing system based on Apple and Google's exposure notification API on Wednesday, according to a press release by the State's health department.
The system will utilize Apple and Google's exposure notification system, which notifies users with the feature enabled if they've come in contact with an individual who has tested positive for COVID-19. Utah is notably one of the few states that initially rejected using the system, and instead opted to use its own system based on less accurate and private GPS and Bluetooth tracking.
Utah's director for the Department of Health Center for Health and Informatics says that contact tracing will enable the state to better manage the pandemic and the outbreak of the virus.
"Contact tracing is an important part of how public health responds and stops disease outbreaks. People who have been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 are more at risk of getting infected and making others sick,"
Unlike other states which are offering standalone apps, Utah's approach will work without an app and only require{s} users with the latest version of iOS and Android to enable exposure notification within the settings app. In practice, when two individuals with the system enabled come in "close proximity" to one another, they exchange "anonymized 'tokens' that log that close interaction for 14 days."
If someone logs a positive test result for COVID-19 into the system, other individuals who were logged to have come in close contact with them within the last 14 days are alerted to get tested and go into self-quarantine. The system will officially launch on Wednesday, February 17, and Utah residents will receive notification alerts over the course of the week encouraging them to enable the system.
Friday September 19, 2025 10:02 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
As reported by Bloomberg today, some of the new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air models on display at Apple Stores today are already scratched and scuffed.
French blog Consomac also reported on this topic.
The scratches appear to be most prominent on models with darker finishes, including the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in Deep Blue, and the iPhone Air in Space Black.
Images Credit: Consoma ...
Monday September 22, 2025 12:44 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple released the first beta of iOS 26.1 today, just a week after launching iOS 26. iOS 26.1 mainly adds new languages to Apple Intelligence, but there are a few other features that are worth knowing about.
New Apple Intelligence Languages
Apple Intelligence is now available in Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.
AirPo...
Monday September 22, 2025 2:16 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Next year's rumored foldable iPhone will showcase an ultra-thin design resembling "two titanium iPhone Airs side-by-side," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Writing in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says Apple's first foldable device will be "super thin and a design achievement," combining Apple's thinnest iPhone form factor with cutting-edge folding...
Thursday September 18, 2025 9:17 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is preparing to release iOS 26.0.1, according to a private account on X with a proven track record of sharing information about future iOS versions.
The update will have a build number of 23A350, or similar, the account said.
It is likely that iOS 26.0.1 will fix a camera-related bug on the new iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models. In his iPhone Air review, CNN Underscored's Henry T. ...
Monday September 22, 2025 8:44 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's latest iPhone models launched on Friday, and some early adopters of the devices are experiencing intermittent Wi-Fi issues.
Affected customers say Wi-Fi connectivity periodically cuts out on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, with hundreds of comments about the issue posted across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and the Apple Support Community over the...
Monday September 22, 2025 11:15 am PDT by Juli Clover
With iOS 26.1, Apple Intelligence is gaining support for additional languages, including Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.
Apple announced plans to expand the languages that can be used with Apple Intelligence last year, and now the added language support is here. Apple Intelligence is now available in the following...
Ahhh. Okay. Reading back through our comments I must have misunderstood your initial fear. You’re saying an app would be able to see which location you go to frequently (your home) and if you suddenly stay at said location (your home) for a week or two or three, it would guess you’re in quarantine. And then serve you ads. That does make sense, and it does seem easy to do! As long as the user enabled always allow on location. Which I don’t think much do anymore now that iOS reminds you that an app has been using it in the background.
If Facebook were to do it though, people are on that app enough multiples times throughout the day that even if “when using” was on it would have enough time to grab that data. And knowing Facebook, I definitely wouldn’t put it past them.
I think we got off on the wrong page because the article is talking about the covid contact tracing API and you’re talking about an individual app being able to do nefarious things if people quarantine and it notices.
Yeah. My point was the notification encourages behavior changes (which is good) but it could use behavior changes of others to estimate a risk. So it’s using it’s changes to its own location tracking to indirectly identify if you received an exposure notifications. So even if you don’t follow isolation guidelines it could figure out if you were recommended to do so and calculate a risk of infection based on others.
Really? Hmm. I don't see it available when I try to turn on Exposure Notifications here in Georgia... I get this message (attached).
I also have "Availability Alerts" turned on, and haven't gotten one... Is there not an indication like these when the Express version is available?
Availability alert isn't very immediate. As for Georgia, the article says it will be rolled out this week. My iPhone shows Georgia, but I am running iOS 14.5 beta.
My point was that the information provided by the COVID service would likely influence behavior enough, across enough people, to make it easy to use GPS logs to identify individuals who received the notification. If your app justifies location information and has a large enough user base then responding to the alert (by isolating) will increase the likelihood you will be identified. Google and Facebook apps would easily be able to perform this and use it to sell targeted ad space for the duration of your recommended quarantine.
Apple's Exposure Notification API does not log GPS information.
It gathers anonymized Bluetooth device IDs, which is changed every 15 minutes. Device IDs are shared with nearby iPhones and Android phones, which is retained on the device for about 2 weeks. Every day, iPhone and Android phones retrieve device IDs from state government's website, of patients who logged positive test results (which is done manually by the patient with positive test case ID number). If there's a match and the threshold is met (e.g., 15 minutes within 6 feet), you will be notified.
If you are using Exposure Notification Express app, it is not possible for third party to link Bluetooth device ID to you in anyway.
