Does your phone suddenly have COVID-19 tracking on it?
A friend of mine posted something that looked fake, so I looked and realized it wasn’t. Google has pushed a COVID-19 exposure notification into the heart of Android, and evidently Apple has done the same.
Now, this is just the API framework and I knew it was coming eventually. A layer that works with a public health app you’ll have to download to anonymously help with contact tracing in the event someone you’ve been around tests positive for the virus. Basically Google and Apple built an anonymizing framework so health departments could not do anything other than send you a note that you’ve been exposed.
To see if you’ve got it and Android go to settings, google, and it should show as COVID-19 Exposure Notifications. Apple has similar however I’m not at an Apple device at the moment so can’t tell you how to get to it.
Evidently people are in an uproar at the moment thinking the Big Two have pushed apps at you, rather than the real bit that they’ve added a well publicized change to the APIs… at this point if your country ever gets a health department app that can work with the contact tracing framework you’ll be able to know when you’ve been exposed and get tested / possibly save a loved one.
You can read about how exposure notifications work here.
This is an update that can be used by an app you install, not an app. Had they wanted to push an app to force track you that’s how easy it would have been and they wouldn’t have ever had to have a line item informing you it’s there.
Thanks to that other Paul King in Australia.
