Covid-19: Google and Apple to launch contract tracing tool, How will it work?

Team Udayavani, Apr 27, 2020, 10:36 AM IST

Google and Apple recently announced a contact tracing tool to help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of the virus, with user privacy and security central to the design. The tech giants also said they are putting stronger privacy protections in their upcoming contact-tracing tool for Covid-19.

How will it work?

Apple and Google says that the tool  is “two-phase exposure notification solution” The tracker uses the Bluetooth technology on smartphones to aid contract-tracing.Once the Bluetooth service is enabled, users’ devices will regularly send out a beacon via Bluetooth that includes a string of random numbers, which changes every 10-20 minutes for additional protection.

The tracker performs this function on every phone it has been enabled on and all these beacons will then be collected in the system as a list.

The system will download a list of beacons that have been verified as belonging to people confirmed as positive for Covid-19 from the relevant public health authority atleast once in a day.

Also, each device will check the list of beacons it has recorded against the list downloaded from the server. If there is a match the user will be notified and advised on steps to take next.