Apple and Google release smartphone technology to tracking coronavirus exposure

After a long wait, Apple and Google revealed, on Wednesday, a smartphone application that automatically informs people if they have been infected with coronavirus or not

Apple and Google announced that about 22 countries, in addition to many US states, are already planning to develop voluntary phone applications using their programs, noting that The applications relies on Bluetooth technology to detect when someone who downloaded the app has spent time near another app user who later tests positive for the coronavirus. according to the Associated Press.

The companies said the new technology – the product of a rare partnership between the rival tech giants – solves some of the main technical challenges that governments have had in building Bluetooth-based apps. It will make it easier for iPhones and Android phones to detect each other, work across national and regional borders and fix some of the problems that led previous apps to quickly drain a phone’s battery.

The statement also included remarks from state officials in North Dakota, Alabama and South Carolina signaling that they plan to use it.

“We invite other states to join us in leveraging smartphone technologies to strengthen existing contact tracing efforts, which are critical to getting communities and economies back up and running,” said North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, 

Many governments have already tried, in vain, to launch their own phone applications to combat the spread of the new coronavirus, which causes Covid-19, but they have faced technical problems on phones running the OS systems from Apple and Android from Google, and have not They are widely adopted.

It is often used Global Positioning System "GPS" To track people's locations which Apple and Google prohibit in their new app Because of concerns about security and privacy.

Public health agencies in Germany and the states of Alabama and South Carolina in the United States have been waiting for the use of the Apple and Google model, while other governments have said privacy restrictions on tech giants will be an obstacle because public health workers will not be able to access data.