The Google and Apple contact tracing app is here? There is something in our phones that show so.

Past few weeks, we have been facing some turbulence in our phones. There may be a reason for it, as we have seen some changes in our settings. There is a "COVID-19 tracker" in our phones. Without our knowledge? Yes! So, go to your settings, type COVID-19 in the search bar and there will an option of "COVID-19 exposure notifications". You can go to the Settings, move to Google and tap on the first option. Upon opening, the contact tracing feature looks something like this:

Earlier this year, Google and Apple got together to make a contact tracing app that would use Bluetooth technology to find nearby cases. They also said that this will comply with the country's contact tracing app. In India's case, it is the Aarogya Setu App.

The contact tracing app in India

Currently, the Aarogya Setu app is not compatible with the Google-Apple API. Hence it cannot use the feature now available in smartphones. Google and Apple require governments to agree to certain terms and conditions, mostly privacy-centric before their apps can be allowed to use the Exposure Notifications.

Several countries, including Australia, Singapore, France and the UK have rejected the Google-Apple App and want to stick to their home-made tracing app. The Google-Apple API will allow contact tracing apps to use features like Bluetooth in a better way so contact tracing is better and more robust. Also, Aarogya Setu requires your location information to work effectively. The Exposure Notifications, on the other hand, is strictly against collecting the GPS information. They have designed the APIs to collect anonymous data and create random IDs, which are shared with other devices to facilitate contact tracing.

Further, the Covid-19 Exposure Notifications settings on the Android phones do not show the Aarogya Setu app, even if you have the app installed. So, we wait for the upgrade to happen.