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...
We're just a couple of weeks away from the unveiling of iOS 15, and we've heard surprisingly little about what to expect from the new update. There are sometimes major software leaks when new versions of iOS are approaching, but that hasn't happened this year.
An unverified source that spoke to writer Connor Jewiss this week revealed some possible new features that we might expect from iOS...
Thursday June 18, 2020 11:11 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced that Canada plans to launch a nationwide COVID-19 contract tracing app based on Apple's and Google's Exposure Notification API, as noted by iPhone in Canada. Trudeau said the app is slated for release in early July, with testing set to begin in Ontario soon.
COVID Shield, a reference for public health authorities to build their own apps ...
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.