Source | the heart of the machine
Participation | Zenan, Zhang Qian
Title map | IC photo
The global spread of the new crown epidemic is spawning a wide-ranging cooperation: On Friday, Apple and Google jointly announced a system to track the spread of new coronaviruses. It will allow users to use low power Bluetooth (BLE) transmits health information and tracks crowd activity.
A series of documents and white papers have been released with this system. According to the document, the two companies are planning to use a short-range Bluetooth communication system to establish a contact tracking network based on the premise of user voluntariness, and store a large amount of data in the mobile phones of close contacts. Officials in the public health department can access these data, and those diagnosed can also take the initiative to report. The system will anonymously remind other users it has contacted, and warn users who have contacted infected people.
For Apple and Google, long-time competitors, such close cooperation is rare.
“Everyone at Apple and Google believes that there is no more important moment than the present moment to solve the most pressing problems in the world today,” the two companies said in a joint statement.
Use all smartphones to fight against the new crown
Specifically, Apple and Google will launch dedicated APIs on their mobile device operating systems iOS and Android in mid-May for health departments to use the data they provide in their apps.
In the newly launched stage, users must download the application to participate in contact tracking, so fewer people may be used at this stage. However, when the API development is completed a few months later, the tracking functions of the two technology giants will be embedded in the system, thus ensuring that every iOS and Android mobile phone is covered.
If this project is finally completed, it will be possible to closely track one-third of the world ’s population. At present, iOS and Android systems together have 3 billion users, covering 99% of the global smartphone market.
The purpose of “contact tracing” is to find out the people that the infected person has contacted, so as to prevent them from infecting other people. This is an important means of controlling the new crown epidemic, but the use of digital surveillance technology to achieve this has caused great concerns about privacy issues and questioned its effectiveness.
Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern about using mobile phone data to track users, saying that any system needs to limit the scope to avoid compromising user privacy.
Unlike other methods (such as using GPS data), this Bluetooth APP does not track people ’s actual location. It receives signals from nearby mobile phones every 5 minutes and stores the connection between them in the database. If a person’s new coronavirus test is positive, he / she can tell the APP that he is infected, and then the APP will notify the person who had been in close contact with the infected person a few days ago.
For people, Apple and Google ’s system to fight the new crown has no hardware obstacles: since the iPhone 4S in 2011, iOS has provided support for Bluetooth LE, and most Android phones Support was also provided in 2012.
After the system ’s launch, both Apple and Android phones will allow wireless exchange of anonymous information with applications run by the public health department.
At the same time, the two companies will also publish a framework associated with public health applications to manage this function. This means that if the user Covid-19’s test result is positive and the test result is added to the APP, users who have had close contact with him / her a few days ago will receive a contact notification. The retrospective time may be 14 days, but the health agency can set a time range.
This wide range of data collection will inevitably raise doubts about information security.
In this regard, Apple and Google emphasized that their system can protect the privacy of users-user consent is required and location data is not collected. The technology will also not inform users of the specific names of people who have been exposed to high-risk groups. The two companies said they would not have access to the data collected.
In addition, the system has taken several steps to prevent users from being identified, even after they shared their data. Although this APP generally sends information via Bluetooth, it broadcasts an anonymous key instead of a static identity message. These keys are cycled every 15 minutes to protect privacy.
Importantly, there is no central master list that can be accessed (including which phones are matched, whether they are infectious, etc.), because the phones themselves are performing the encryption calculations needed to protect privacy. The central server is only responsible for maintaining the database of shared keys, not the interaction between these keys.
This method currently has some potential weaknesses.
In a crowded space, it may mark people who are born in the next room but do not share space with users, causing unnecessary panic. It may also not be able to capture the nuances of the length of time a person is exposed to the virus environment-for example, working with an infected person all day, the amount of virus you are exposed to is more than rubbing shoulders with them on the street Too much. Moreover, the role of APP may be greatly reduced in areas with poor signal.
As a newly released application, Apple and Google are still communicating with the health department and other stakeholders about operational matters. The system may not be able to replace the traditional method of contact tracing (interviewing infected people, asking where they went and who they met), but it can be used as a high-tech supplement and the equipment used is already owned by billions of people of.
US netizens: feel that the rights granted to Americans by the Constitution are violated
As mentioned earlier, this API will be embedded in all Android and Apple phones when it matures, regardless of whether you install the APP or not. This practice was strongly opposed by foreign netizens. They believe that this is a surveillance behavior, and Apple and Google will become the same as “big brother” and “big father”.
Some people said they would turn off their mobile phones and all smart devices, feeling that their human rights had been violated.
What ’s more, this is not the same as the Nazis ’marking of Jews during World War II, and some poor people who have recovered may be discriminated or attacked.
There are more than one person who has such concerns: “If you put it in the AIDS epidemic, you (infected person) may be murdered by homophobia.” In addition, it is also a very real worry that you cannot return to work after recovery.
But it has also been said that if sacrifice of privacy can be exchanged for normal production, life and economic recovery, then this is also acceptable.
According to statistics, as of now, the number of new coronavirus infections in the world has reached 1.69 million, and the number of deaths has exceeded 100,000. The “closure orders” issued by governments of various countries have forced millions of people to stay at home. As the economy tightens, the pressure to deregulate is rising. In this situation, whether people are in conflict or not, achieving close contact with the new coronavirus seems to be the key to returning to normal activities and preventing the new coronavirus from recurring.
Reference content:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/10/21216484/google-apple-co