Draft specifications for the API have already been published, and it could be available for developers to use this week. Other developers will have to build apps that actually execute the new API. This API will contain the bare-bones functionality necessary to make their proximity-tracing scheme work on both iPhones and Androids. In phase 1, Google and Apple are building a new API into their respective platforms. If the app finds a match, the user gets a notification of their risk of infection. Participating apps can use the registry to compare the RPIDs a user has been in contact with against the RPIDs of confirmed COVID-19 carriers. The diagnosis keys contain all the information needed to re-generate the full set of RPIDs associated with each infected user’s device. After they are uploaded, a user’s temporary exposure keys are known as “diagnosis keys.” The diagnosis keys are stored in a public registry and available to everyone else who uses the app. In order to prevent people from flooding the system with false alarms, health authorities need to verify that the user is actually infected before they may upload their keys. If an app user learns they are infected, they can grant a public health authority permission to publicly share their temporary exposure keys. Proximity tracking apps might be, at most, a small part of a larger public health response to COVID-19. The operating system will save all of its temporary exposure keys, and log all the RPIDs it comes into contact with, for the past 2 weeks. This is meant to reduce the risk that third-party trackers can use the pings to passively track people’s locations. Each ping will contain the phone’s current RPID, which will change every 10 to 20 minutes. Pings will go out at least once every five minutes when Bluetooth is enabled. The rest of this post looks at Apple and Google’s proposal ( version 1.1 ) in particular.Įach phone will generate a new special-purpose private key each day, known as a “temporary exposure key.” It will then use that key to generate random identification numbers called “rolling proximity identifiers” (RPIDs). There are now many different proposals to do basically this same thing, with slightly different considerations for efficiency, security, and privacy. If they are sufficiently close-6 feet or closer, based on current CDC guidance-both will log a contact event. The apps will use Bluetooth signal strength to estimate the distance between the two phones. Their phones will also be emitting and listening for those pings. In the case of COVID-19 proximity tracking apps, they will be reaching out to nearby people who have also opted into using Bluetooth for this purpose. Usually, these pings are looking for your external speakers or wireless mouse. If you download one of these apps, it will use your phone’s Bluetooth chip to do what Bluetooth does: emit little radio pings to find other devices. How Will It Work?Īs soon as today, Apple and Google are beginning to roll out parts of the iPhone and Android infrastructure that developers need to be able to build Bluetooth-based proximity tracking apps. Insufficient privacy protections will reduce that trust and thus undermine the apps’ efficacy. Their effectiveness will rely on numerous tradeoffs and sufficient trust for widespread public adoption. The apps built on top of Apple and Google’s new system will not be a “magic bullet” technosolution to the current state of shelter-in-place. This use of Bluetooth technology is unproven and untested, and it’s designed for use in smartphone apps that won’t reach everyone. Still, their model is engineered to reduce the privacy risks of Bluetooth proximity tracking, and it’s preferable to other strategies that depend on a central server. This kind of app has some unavoidable privacy tradeoffs, as we’ll discuss below, and Apple and Google could do more to prevent privacy leaks. Apple and Google’s tech would be largely decentralized, keeping most of the data on users’ phones and away from central databases. As Apple and Google are an effective duopoly in the mobile operating system space, their plan carries special weight. The companies’ plan is part of a torrent of proposals to use Bluetooth signal strength to enhance manual contact tracing with proximity-based mobile apps. Apple and Google are undertaking an unprecedented team effort to build a system for Androids and iPhones to interoperate in the name of technology-assisted COVID-19 contact tracing.
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