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.
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.
Tuesday February 16, 2021 4:15 am PST by Sami Fathi
Accurate and rapid COVID-19 testing has become a critical hallmark in the battle against the pandemic. Unfortunately, getting tested on a mainstream level currently requires a trip to a clinic or government instituted site. However, in a possible breakthrough of what it means to get tested, Kroger Health today announced it's planning to obtain FDA approval for the first smartphone-enabled...
Wednesday March 31, 2021 5:16 am PDT by Sami Fathi
The International Air Transport Association, or IATA, announced today that it plans to launch a digital travel passport for COVID-19 test results and vaccination certificates on Apple's App Store around April 15.
As reported by Reuters, IATA has had the digital passport in development for the past few months and is currently undergoing beta testing. Initial plans called for the digital pass...
Apple is bringing new features to the Health app that aim to make it easier to identify, measure, and understanding health changes over time.
Mobility tracking will soon capture a new Walking Steadiness metric to assess your fall risk, by measuring speed and evenness of gait. Apple will leverage the data to generate a classification of your steadiness and how it changes over time.
Apple...
Monday December 7, 2020 10:22 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple and Google's Exposure Notification system has been rolling out to many states and countries across the world, and starting this Thursday, California, the most populous state in the U.S., will get access to Exposure Notifications.
California COVID Notify has been in testing at UC Berkeley and other UC campuses since earlier this year, but on Thursday, Exposure Notifications are set to...
Tuesday February 16, 2021 4:03 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple today informed developers that "health pass" apps can only be submitted by developers that are working with recognized public health authorities.
A "health pass" app is classified as an app that generates a pass that's used to enter buildings and access in-person services based on testing and vaccination records.
Apple says that to make sure these apps are responsibly handling...
Apple and Google have blocked an update to England and Wales' contact tracing app that included a feature that would have collected user location data, breaking the companies' terms and conditions for contact tracing apps, the BBC reports.
Last year, Apple and Google partnered up to announce a COVID-19 contact tracing API that allows apps to track whether someone has been in contact with an...
Tuesday March 30, 2021 10:05 am PDT by Juli Clover
The Apple Maps app was this week updated with new COVID-19 guidelines for airports, providing iPhone, iPad, and Mac users with a quick look at COVID-19 travel requirements and easy access to each airport's full list of guidelines.
Airport data is being provided by the Airports Council International, with the information displayed at the top of each airport card. The Airports Council...
During its Google I/O developers conference today, Google previewed Android 12, the next version of Android that will ship to millions of Android devices around the world later this year. Google is mainly targeting customization as the theme for this year's new release and a new design language that it's calling "Material You." Google says this new design language brings a "humanistic...
Apple's AirPods have been credited with saving a woman's life after a potentially fatal fall, People reports.
When a 60-year-old florist in New Jersey tripped and hit her head in her studio, she lost consciousness and awoke heavily bleeding. With nobody around to call for help, she realized she had her AirPods in, and used a "Hey Siri" command to call 911. An operator was able to stay on the ...
Wednesday January 19, 2022 11:30 am PST by Juli Clover
It's now been a few months since the M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro models launched in October, and MacRumors video editor Dan Barbera has been using one of the new machines since they debuted. Over on the MacRumors YouTube channel, Dan has shared a three month review of his MacBook Pro to see how it has held up over time and how it's changed his workflow.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube ...
Wednesday January 19, 2022 6:44 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple suppliers will begin producing display panels for the third-generation iPhone SE this month, with final assembly of the device likely to start in March, according to information shared by display industry consultant Ross Young.
Based on this production timeframe, Young believes the third-generation iPhone SE is likely to launch in the second half of April, or perhaps in early May at...
Apple will no longer include EarPods with every iPhone sold in France, starting on January 24, according to a notice posted by a French carrier (via iGeneration). Apple was previously required to include EarPods in the box with the iPhone due to a French law that required every smartphone sold in the country to come with a "handsfree kit," but the law has now been changed in favor of reducing the ...
Thursday January 20, 2022 8:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Earlier this week, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman tweeted that Apple "will be holding a spring event" to announce a new iPhone SE and other hardware. In a recent edition of his newsletter, Gurman said the event is likely to occur in March or April.
Gurman did not elaborate on what "other hardware" will be announced at Apple's purported spring event, but rumors suggest at least four products are...
Following months of bleak news about Peloton's "precarious state," including the revelation that it has halted production of its bikes and treadmills, Apple is being floated as a potential buyer of Peloton's troubled fitness business.
Yesterday, CNBC reported that Peloton will temporarily stop production of its connected fitness products due to a "significant reduction" in consumer demand, a ...
Thursday January 20, 2022 4:01 pm PST by Juli Clover
The watchOS 8.4 release candidate that was seeded to developers and beta testers this morning addresses an ongoing bug that could cause some Apple Watch chargers not to work properly with the Apple Watch.
Back in December, we reported on a growing number of charging issues that Apple Watch Series 7 owners were facing. Since watchOS 8.3, there have been a number of complaints about...
Thursday January 20, 2022 3:32 am PST by Sami Fathi
Apple patched two significant security vulnerabilities when it released iOS 15 that could have potentially exposed users' private Apple ID information and in-app search history to malicious third-party apps and allowed apps to override user Privacy preferences, Apple has revealed in a recent support document update.
With most iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS updates, Apple provides a list of...
Thursday January 20, 2022 1:30 pm PST by Juli Clover
The macOS Monterey 12.2 and iOS 15.3 release candidates that came out today appear to address a Safari bug that could cause your recent browsing history and details about your identity to be leaked to malicious entities.
As shared last week by browser fingerprinting service FingerprintJS, there is an issue with the WebKit implementation of the IndexedDB JavaScript API. Any website that uses...
Top Rated Comments
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.