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Google-Apple contract tracing app: An year-end update on how it is coming out

Google releases a year-end update on how its contract tracing tech with Apple is coming out. They designed the APIs which facilitated contact tracing.

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CIOL Bureau
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Google releases an year-end update on how its contract tracing tech with Apple is coming out

Earlier this year in April, 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. Then, in May, our phones saw a new feature -The Exposure Notification.

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According to Google, the API allowed contact tracing apps to use features like Bluetooth in a better way so contact tracing was better and more robust. For example, the Aarogya Setu app required your location information to work effectively. The Exposure Notifications, on the other hand, was strictly against collecting the GPS information. They designed the APIs to collect anonymous data and create random IDs, which facilitated contact tracing.

How did the Exposure Notification work?

Public health authorities around the world have been building apps that use the Exposure Notifications System to help their contact tracing efforts. On Android, you can find the app for your area, if available, on Google Play. Android users will also receive a notification from the Play Store if their state has made Exposure Notifications available. For India, the Aarogya Setu app. If you have an iPhone, opt-in to Exposure Notifications in your device settings.

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Once you opt into the notification system, the Exposure Notifications System will generate a random ID for your device. To help ensure these random IDs can’t be used to identify you or your location, they change every 10-20 minutes. Your phone periodically checked all the random IDs associated with positive COVID-19 cases against its own list. In case of a match, you received a COVID-19 exposure notification, with further instructions from your public health authority on how to keep you and the people around you safe.

What is the status of the Google-Apple partnership?

Google and Apple jointly created the Exposure Notifications System out of a shared sense of responsibility to help governments and the global community fight this pandemic through contact tracing.

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According to Google, "By simply downloading your regional app, you can help public health authorities in their efforts to control COVID-19. There’s plenty of evidence that people are doing this: 40% of the population in the UK and 17% of the population in Uruguay have downloaded the app. In the United States, 20% of Colorado and 53% of Washington D.C. have enabled EN."

It further adds, "There are other anecdotal signs that the system is helping. In September, the Prime Minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, received an exposure notification; and in November, the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, had been infected. He used Exposure Notifications to alert staff members who may have been exposed."

Google also adds that the tech is constantly evolving. It states that it has consulted major public health organizations. A few names include

- the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

- the CDC Foundation

- the Association of Public Health Laboratories

- the American Public Health Association

- the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials

- the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists

- the National Association of County and City Health Officials

- the Task Force for Global Health

The tech giant also said, "The goal of this project is to assist public health authorities in their efforts by enabling exposure notification in a privacy-preserving manner. We will continue to work with them to help you protect yourself and your community during this pandemic and we plan to keep you updated here with new information again next year."

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