- Apple and Google are working together to develop a COVID-19 detection tool.
- If a person communicates that they are infected, anonymously, all those who have been within a few meters of them will receive a notice.
- The COVID-19 detection tool is already available from today.
Starting today, the tool that Apple and Google have jointly developed to track Covid-19 infections is now available.
It can be accessed with the iOS 13.5 update , while Google users can get it from an update on Google Play. Google and Apple say they have distributed the API to 22 countries and different states .
With COVID-19 detection tool, it is intended that governments and local authorities can carry out monitoring of coronavirus infections regardless of the mobile they use, since it is the same tool for iOS and Android, and also share data , to carry out a global monitoring.
The first users to receive it appear to be iOS users , as it is included in the iOS 13.5 update , which began shipping a few hours ago.
Once the application is installed, iOS users will be able to access the Privacy tab of Settings. Here the Health option will appear , where you can see which applications use this detection system that companies are going to put in the hands of governments so that they can work on their own versions.
Here we can see how this app will be, and the notifications, in the American version:
On Android, it will be very similar. But we must be clear that it is not an app that we can download and use directly. What Apple and Google have done is develop the API, the COVID-19 detection tool that allows to track mobiles and create the database with infections. But it is the governments and other authorities that will use that API to develop their own app, so it can still take a few weeks.
How is this tool going to work? When two people with a covid-19 tracking app installed approach with Bluetooth enabled, which only has a range of a few meters, they exchange an anonymous key.
If one of those people, days later, detects that they have the coronavirus and communicates it to the app (always anonymously), all the people with whom they have exchanged their password will receive a notice on their mobile indicating that they have been in contact with an infected person.
Of course, this does not mean that they are, but it is very useful to take precautions if they have people at risk nearby or to get tested. And authorities can track the infections, to prevent possible outbreaks.
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