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.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has high expectations for Apple's first foldable iPhone.
In his Power On newsletter today, he said the foldable iPhone will be "the most significant overhaul in the iPhone's history."
"iPhone 4, iPhone 6 and iPhone X were clearly a big deal, but this is a whole new design," he said.
Like Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7, the foldable iPhone will reportedly open up like ...
March has been an incredibly busy month for Apple, with the company unveiling more than 10 new products and accessories. We said hello to the MacBook Neo at the start of the month, and we bid farewell to the Mac Pro at the end of it.
Nevertheless, there is still a lot more to come this year.
Beyond the usual annual updates to iPhones and Apple Watches, Apple's all-new smart home hub is...
Saturday March 28, 2026 8:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is expected to release two new iPhone apps this year, including an Apple Business app and a Siri app with chatbot-like functionality.
With the Apple Business app, employees at businesses using the new Apple Business platform will be able to install apps for work, view contact information for colleagues, and request support. Apple Business is launching on April 14, and it replaces Apple ...
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has high expectations for Apple's first foldable iPhone.
In his Power On newsletter today, he said the foldable iPhone will be "the most significant overhaul in the iPhone's history."
"iPhone 4, iPhone 6 and iPhone X were clearly a big deal, but this is a whole new design," he said.
Like Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7, the foldable iPhone will reportedly open up like ...
March has been an incredibly busy month for Apple, with the company unveiling more than 10 new products and accessories. We said hello to the MacBook Neo at the start of the month, and we bid farewell to the Mac Pro at the end of it.
Nevertheless, there is still a lot more to come this year.
Beyond the usual annual updates to iPhones and Apple Watches, Apple's all-new smart home hub is...
Saturday March 28, 2026 8:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is expected to release two new iPhone apps this year, including an Apple Business app and a Siri app with chatbot-like functionality.
With the Apple Business app, employees at businesses using the new Apple Business platform will be able to install apps for work, view contact information for colleagues, and request support. Apple Business is launching on April 14, and it replaces Apple ...
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.
Here you are asked to self isolate until you are cleared. Assuming you get tested the same day it takes about 48 hours to get results. It wouldn’t even take a dozen people not doing their routine to realize you need to scan for the common person they all recently met. I suspect there is enough money in it that it will ever
The name of the game is subtle but sudden changes. It’s not only feasible it’s reasonable. This is the new normal. We won’t get to grocery shop without masks for five years (if your an optimist) or 20 (if you’re a realist). Being the first to know when someone is limited to their home will pay handsomely. The temptation is to great.
I suspect there is enough money in it that adverts will show up before people get tested.
I don't see what that has to do with Exposure Notifications. If an app has "always" access to location services, as your use case requires, it will detect your sedentary lifestyle and might suggest ads based on that.
The app won't be able to leverage Exposure Notification to target people in any way.
1. People enable exposure notifications. 2. You install GooBook which logs your GPS. 3. Everyone else installs GooBook, because hey it's free! 4. You are exposed to someone who tested positive. 5. So are other people. 6. Exposure notifications go out. 7. A percentage of people follow exposure guidelines and have a sudden change in local travel behavior. 8. Algorithm reviews GPS coordinates of different users to identify primary intersect. 9. Algorithm predicts quarantine/isolation for users who were close enough to the primary. 10. Change in targeted ads based on the expectation of illness or isolation. 11. Profit.
You lost me at 7-11.
People who are exposed to COVID-19 patient will not change their local travel behavior all that drastically. At best, they will get tested and when the result comes back negative as it would be in most cases, will resume their normal routines.
And if you are that paranoid, you can disable "Precise Location" Location Services setting (which is the default setting). Most apps don't need to know my precise location.
It doesn't need to. All that matters is that a popular app you use logs GPS information. I am not questioning the value of this service to society. I am saying it's only anonymous as a stand-alone service. Any app that does log GPS will be able to use the influence of the exposure notification to identify if you were exposed... even if you personally don't follow the guidelines.
How would 3rd party app know whether I am exposed or not? Exposure Notification data is off limit to 3rd party apps without EN entitlement profile, which Apple does not grant easily. And you must grant access when using such apps.
