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About two weeks ago, Apple and Google announced a partnership to develop an interface for contact tracing applications. Now changes have been made and answers to the most important questions have been published.
Apple and Google want to provide an interface that only official health authorities can access in order to be able to provide contact tracing applications via Bluetooth. But this is causing resentment among many users. Answers to frequently asked questions about COVID-19 contact tracing have now been provided for iOS and Android. In addition, both companies have updates on the Bluetooth and cryptography specifications. It's worth noting that, based on feedback from around the world, Apple and Google have made several changes to their upcoming COVID-19 response initiative, focusing on even stronger privacy protections. Apple and Google are now calling the initiative "Exposure Notification," which the companies believe better describes the functionality of their upcoming API. The system is designed to notify a person of a possible exposure, complementing the broader contact tracing efforts of public health authorities.
Recording of movement patterns not possible
The so-called tracing IDs are to be generated anew every day and not, as initially planned, derived from a permanent key. The Bluetooth metadata is to be fully encrypted according to the AES standard to prevent subsequent identification of people. In order to prevent the recording of movement patterns, the contact history is to be stored for a maximum of 30 minutes. Furthermore, the API will contain information about the power level of the Bluetooth signal so that the distance between two devices can be calculated more accurately. In addition, according to the new documentation, further changes to the API specifications are to be made over time based on continuous feedback from health authorities. Access to geo data will not be possible. The first version of this interface is to be available for both iOS and Android on April 28th Access will only be available to developers who are involved in projects run by government health authorities. The implementation of this API will be carried out via a software update that will be available for all iPhone models from the iPhone 6S upwards. FAQ catalog includes a total of twelve questions, including privacy, functionality and more. If you are interested, you can download the PDF below. Due to the length, we have decided not to make it available here on the page. (Photo by VK Studio / Bigstockphoto)
