Apple and Google team up to track COVID-19 patients. This is how it will work

Apple and Google develop technology to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. It uses smartphones on Android and iOS with Bluetooth enabled and will allow you to keep track of who the COVID-19 patients have come into contact with.

This is how it should work:

1. Two people for a little while linger with each other, for example, 10 minutes. Their smartphones automatically exchange anonymous identifiers that change every 15 minutes.
2. If one of these two is later diagnosed with COVID-19, health authorities will pass their identifiers over the past 14 days to Apple and Google - of course, only with the patient's consent.
3. The system compares the identifiers, and all people who have come into contact with the sick are notified and information on how to behave in the event of a threat of infection.

Something similar in parallel create specialists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The social tracking feature will be rolling out in mid-May with Android and iOS updates. Then the corresponding official applications will appear on Google Play and AppStore. They should be compatible even with fairly old versions of systems, such as Android 6.0.

Later, the technology will be built right into the smartphone OS, and its API will become available to local health authorities.

The companies claim that they will not collect location information and personal data.

If a person receives a notification about contact with an infected person, it will not contain any names. The system is decentralized and identifiers will only be stored on users' devices.

Specialists of the American Civil Liberties Union considerthat any tracking of smartphones to control the spread of COVID-19 could breach privacy. So participation in the program should be voluntary.