Apple and Google are working on coronavirus contact-tracing technology for iOS and Android

Another problem with this is that a persons medical data is private. How does the app know if the person has tested positive for COVID, unless the person uses the app and enters their private medical data. `

@xeni, and others: have a look here for an interesting discussion about the technical aspects of bluetooth proximity measurements.

Bottom line: doesn’t compute, yet.

ETA: most relevant post, by @Aciantis:

It doesn’t.

However the goal isn’t preventing your own phone form “knowing” something. It is your phone. You might as well be worried about a pile of post-its in your desk knowing your girlfriend’s phone number. The post-it’s job is remembering things for you, not telling 3M about your social life.

Your phone is yours. It knowing things isn’t really an issue. My phone has an app from my HMO, it “knows” my long term ailments, what prescriptions I have, who my doctor is, what messages I have exchanged with my doctor.

I don’t care that it knows those things, I care that it doesn’t go blabbing to everyone else.

…or is the question “once you have a positive test result how does the clinic make sure you inform everyone as opposed to just walking out the door muttering ‘if I have to suffer at least all those other bastards will suffer along with me!’”?

In that case, yeah, maybe the answer is we don’t have a way to make that happen. At least no more of a way when we did with manual contact tracking (i.e. what we normally do!). A doctor can try to lay a guilt trip. A clinic can only offer free tests to people that participate in contact tracking, turn up positive and not send the alert via app or sound forthcoming when telling someone your contact history and you end up with a $2000 “fine” in the form of the cost of the lab work and such. Or in openly authoritarian countries you get beaten with a rubber hose until you do what the government wants, or you die of blunt force trauma.

I know, I answered this once from the “false positives are bad but not the ned of the world” perspective. Now from the other direction.

What kind of mask was it? A surgical-style mask mostly prevents others from being infected by you, so thinks for waring it, but go get tested. Was it a homemade mask? Then like a surgical mask it mostly protects others from you, so again thanks for wearing it (really!), but go get tested. Was it a N95 mask? You might be protected (and FYI, if the N95 you have has breather vents you probably aren’t protecting others, you selfish bastard). The key here is might. Have you used it for enough hours that the protection has warn down? Did you touch the outside of the mask and then your eyes? Or your mask and then before you washed your hands your face? Did you hang the mask in your house somewhere where it rubbed against anything else that you later transferred to your face?

Also no matter what mask you wore did you later touch your clothes before disinfecting them, and then touch your face? Oops.

Don’t get me wrong, masks are great, but they don’t mean you don’t need to get tested.

Several days onwards, and the media still isn’t discussing any technical aspects of BT proximity determination.

Hello, everyone? I reiterate: it seems this technology cannot work without additional location data!

@xeni, could you please look into this? You surely got some contacts in the journalists realm, right?

I am not an engineer, but FFS, I can understand what @Aciantis wrote.

ETA:

This triggered me writing this post. No mention that the technology itself cannot work as intended. We’re massively overselling something here.

By building contact-tracing into their operating systems

Hm. They do need a high percentage of users for this to be effective, but that’s a bit concerning.

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