Coronavirus: Apple and Google are working on interfaces for contact tracking in Android and iOS
from David Wurm 
on April 10, 2020, 21:26 p.m. | Write a comment
The exact spread of the coronavirus is currently difficult to track. Various apps that the authorities are currently publishing should help. Most of the time, these apps don't work really well across OSs. Apple and Google are now working on a uniform solution.
The coronavirus is currently keeping us all busy and giving us new ideas. For example, authorities have published so-called “contact apps”, such as the “Stop Corona” app of the Red Cross in Austria. Or the RKI's “data donation” app in Germany, which does not rely directly on contacts. However, since not all users use the same operating system on their smartphones, data transfer between Android and iOS does not necessarily work reliably. Apple's iOS has more restrictions for recording such data in the background than Google's Android.
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Basically, these contact apps are there to record the contact chain. If you have had contact with an infected person, the other users should be warned and also go into quarantine. In order to facilitate the recording, both operating systems are to get a corresponding API for developers from May onwards. Android and iOS smartphones should be able to exchange data with other devices in the vicinity based on Bluetooth. This should create a contact diary and make the infection traceable. The authorities can make their certified apps available via the respective app stores, where they can be downloaded by users.
Then: Implementation of the contact diary directly into the system
The second step of the cooperation is then to take place in the coming months. Here one would like to integrate this contact diary directly into the system of the two operating systems - use (opt-in) should take place on a voluntary basis. As Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), and Google write in their blog posts that users will not be tracked and data will not be sent to the servers. I am not sure how this is supposed to work, namely that affected users are warned. After all, without a server connection, the system would not know whether the contact was infected afterwards.
Implementation code should be open source
“We will make information about our work transparent so that others can evaluate it,” emphasize the two companies. So one can assume that the code will be open source. When developing this integration, the focus should be on user privacy, write Apple and Google in their joint statement. If you read the English blog post from Google, you can already find the first documentation of the implementation there.
- Privacy-safe contact tracing using Bluetooth Low Energy
- Contact Tracing Bluetooth Specification
- Contact Tracing Cryptography Specification
- Android Contact Tracing API
Google also mentions that all Android devices from version 6 (Marshmallow) should be able to receive this implementation via a software update. Apple, on the other hand, writes about being able to deliver this API on all iPhones.
