Apple & Google Ban the Use of Location Tracking for Contact Tracing Apps

With the need for contact tracing, many people are scared shitless about the governments’ capability to spy on all of us. After all, they can use COVID-19 as an excuse for mass surveillance.

Judging from the low downloads of TraceTogether, I’m sure all of you are afraid too.

What you guys didn’t know is that all you need to do is just to build rapport with your FBI agent spying on you. Since school days, I had been communicating with my agent using my searches.

And now, he/she even help me secure some kills for my games.

But for real, we had already explained that TraceTogether uses Bluetooth and not geolocation, which means that privacy infringement of TraceTogether is actually much much lower than your average app.

In a +1 for privacy advocate moves that also doesn’t compromise on contact tracing, Apple and Google are banning the use of location tracking in contact tracing apps.

This is bigly, because like 99% of phones out there use either iOs or Android.

And you might remember that Apple and Google are making a “TraceTogether-like” feature, which may or may not have help from the TraceTogether team.

Plans to Allow Only Public Health Authorities To Use The Tech

The system is able to notify people who have been near others who tested positive for COVID-19 using Bluetooth without storing location data. And I know I’m sounding repetitive here, but this sounds similar to TraceTogether.

Apple and Google said that privacy and preventing governments from using the system to compile data on citizens was the primary goal.

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The two companies said they will only allow one app per country to use the contact system to avoid fragmentation and encourage wider adoption. Countries using a state or regional approach, like US states, can also use the system.

Of course, it’s not like this solution doesn’t have any problems. For one, Bluetooth is quite battery draining. iPhone and Android devices also tend to turn off Bluetooth after some time to save battery, which means that the system can still miss some encounters.

Some Think GPS Location Data Is Still Vital

Developers of several official COVID-19-related apps said that it was still vital they be allowed to use GPS in conjunction with the new contact tracing system.

Software company Twenty, developer of Utah’s Healthy Together contact tracing app with both GPS and Bluetooth, said that the app can still operate effectively without the new Apple-Google tool.

“If their approach can be more effective than our current solution, we’ll eagerly incorporate their features into our existing application, provided it meets the specifications of current and prospective public health partners,” Twenty said.

Canada’s Alberta province also said they have no plans to adopt the new system for its ABTraceTogether app, which does not collect GPS data.

In the meantime, if all you want is to reduce the use of data because you don’t mind letting the world know where you’ve been, you might want to check out this video on ten ways to use less data (and also subscribe to our YouTube channel, please?):