Contact tracing should be a key instrument for the normalisation of society

Contact tracing should be a key instrument for the normalisation of society

New York, 18.5.2020

When Apple and Google recently revealed that they were developing technology that would allow national health authorities around the world to develop apps for contact tracking and exposure reporting, there were numerous protests. Their system uses Bluetooth signals to determine how close one has come to diagnosed Covid 19 patients. For some experts, however, this is crucial for the normalization of society.
Developers now have an early version of the system at their disposal – but with prohibitions and rules. The first prohibition concerns the release of the location of the persons concerned. The next point: only health authorities are allowed to produce these apps. It continues with the requirement that all apps must receive the user’s consent before they can use the Exposure Notification API; a second consent is required before positive test results and „diagnostic keys“ can be passed on to health authorities. Finally, data collection must be kept to a minimum and used only to respond to health issues. Other uses of the data are prohibited: They may not be used for targeted advertising or police action.
Background: This technology is built into the iOS and Android operating systems and is therefore used in the vast majority of smartphones. This avoids fragmentation by different systems – a crucial prerequisite if contact tracing efforts are to be successful.