Apple And Google Are Building A Virus-tracking System. Health Officials Say It Will Be Practically Useless.
But Apple and Google have refused, arguing that letting the apps collect location data or loosening other smartphone rules would undermine people’s privacy. The companies are also concerned that easing the restrictions around apps’ Bluetooth use would drain phone battery life, which could irritate customers. That unbending stance has led some health authorities to abandon hopes of building a fully functioning contact-tracing app But the tech giants’ resistance to letting public health officials access people’s data has a long precedent of keeping personal information out of the hands of governments. Apple and Google said in a statement that they have held hundreds of conversations with public health authorities around the world and made principled decisions to limit how the system is used to prevent invasions of privacy or data misuse. Though the companies first debuted the effort by calling it a “contact tracing” system, company executives now say it is designed to do no such ...
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