No, Your Phone Doesn’t Have a COVID-19 Sensor
Open Facebook if you are still using it and enter “COVID-19 Sensor” in the search bar. This should show you a list of public messages in which people – not so few people mind you – swear that their phones have recently been updated with a “COVID-19 tracker” that can tell them when they’ve been around. an infected person.
We all know this is a pretty big exaggeration of what’s really going on, but it never stopped anyone from posting something stupid on social media, so let’s go. The complete text of a copy and paste job usually looks like this:
For your information, you know that a COVID-19 sensor has been secretly inserted into every phone. Apparently, when everyone had a phone malfunction earlier this week, they added the COVID-19 tracker to our phones.
If you have an Android phone, go to settings, then search for Google settings and see if it’s there.
If you are using an IPhone, go to settings, privacy, then health, it is there, but not working yet. The app can notify you if you’ve been around someone who reported COVID-19.
Don’t turn it on because you will be tracked wherever you go, but as soon as you update your phone, it will automatically turn on on our phones.
Where to begin. I think I’ll start with the most obvious tip: if you are worried about companies tracking your location, I have bad news for you. Your device, your apps and your services are clearly designed to determine where you are, what you do, and how it can be used to serve you more relevant ads and content. We’ve looked at this in depth , and it’s well known that companies have a variety of tools at their disposal to get a rough idea of who you are, where you are, and what you enjoy doing on your device, if not the Internet. on the loose. This is the price you pay for all the free services you enjoy.
So, if you are very concerned about privacy, your first thoughts shouldn’t be about the whole coronavirus. You should probably switch to a dumber phone, or at least do your best to lock your device’s settings so that you tell these companies as little as possible about yourself. It won’t stop them from gathering information about you, but it will at least diminish what they can do and, if nothing else, make you feel a little better.
How the exposure notification API actually works
Now let’s get back to COVID-19. No, your smartphone does not have a COVID sensor or built-in COVID tracker. Thanks to operating system updates, it could have a new API for information disclosure notifications . And if you have this on your phone, and only that, nothing really has changed about your privacy from now until the outbreak of the pandemic.
Let’s dig deeper. The exposure notification API requires your device to be running at least iOS 13.5 or Android Marshmallow (version 6). This in itself is innocent. Google and Apple don’t use it to figure out if you’ve contracted the coronavirus – through your text messages, your health information, email, or any other conspiracy theory that exists. The government also doesn’t use your phone to check your health or track your exact movements. (Hope.)
To use the specified exposure notification API, you need to download the app that connects to it. Otherwise, the API does nothing by default. There are only a few of these apps available in the US right now, and all of them are geographic-specific. In other words, downloading and installing a Virginia app that uses this API won’t do you much good.
But even if you did download the app for your location, you still need a non-automatic grant for said app access to the API. If or when you do this, your phone will be able to notify you when other users are nearby using the API. I realize it sounds a bit like “god, scary location tracking ahhhhhh1! one!” So let’s figure out what this means. As Google describes :
- “This technology only works if you choose to register. If you change your mind, you can turn it off at any time.
- The exposure notification system does not collect or use your device’s location data. It uses Bluetooth, which can be used to determine if two devices are close to each other without showing where they are.
- All exposure notification mappings happen on your device. The system does not share your identity with other users, Apple or Google. Public health authorities may ask you for additional information, such as a telephone number, to contact you with additional instructions.
- The technology will only be available to healthcare applications. Their applications must meet certain criteria for privacy, security and data use. “
Of course, people posting junk science on social media are probably not interested in hearing one of the same companies responsible for the whistle-blower API talk about how it works – conspiracy theories – that’s what they are. present. But it really is.
Installing an app using the API doesn’t suddenly send your location to a giant database that is then used to track your location; armed doctors won’t knock your door down and shove hydroxychloroquine tablets down your throat. Your health insurance cannot suddenly raise your rates because they have mysteriously found out that you are infected with or have been exposed to the coronavirus.
What happens when someone gets infected with COVID-19, including you
If you get in touch with someone with COVID-19, here’s how you will receive a notification and what data may be transferred :
“Once you connect to the exposure notification system, it will generate random identifiers on your device. To prevent tracking, your phone’s random ID changes every 10-20 minutes.
Your phone runs in the background to share these random IDs over Bluetooth with phones around you that also have exposure notifications enabled. When your phone detects a random ID from another device, it records and stores the ID on your device.
If someone reports that they have COVID-19 and their ID is stored on your phone, your app will notify you of further action. “
“National health authorities determine which factors may indicate exposure.
If your app learns that you’ve contacted someone who has reported they have COVID-19, the system can share information with the app, including:
- The day the contact was made.
- How long the contact lasted.
- The Bluetooth signal strength of this contact.
Your public health app is not allowed to use your phone’s location data.
The exposure notification system itself does not use your location or pass on the identity of other users to the app, Google or Apple. “
If you are infected, you will be required to report this status yourself in whatever application you use. You can be a jerk and say nothing; you can uninstall the app right away. You can do whatever you want. What is at stake is your personal understanding of what is right and wrong – your healthcare provider is not going to flaunt you and send all of your information, including your real-time location, to everyone else using any contract tracking app that provides your state. …
(I know this sounds silly, but I’m just getting ahead of the crowd that “spies on me”.)
And self-reporting of your status is not just a click-the-button deal and now I have COVID – at least not for apps that don’t give a damn about being useful tools for the general public. As COVIDWISE Virginia describes:
“The laboratory results of all people who test positive for COVID-19 are sent to the [Virginia Department of Health]. It is not related to the application. Our staff monitor people who are rated positive based on the information provided in the laboratory report. As a sign of respect to all users of the app, VDH will verify positive test results and then provide COVIDWISE users with a Personal Identification Number (PIN). You must use this PIN to inform the application of a positive result. This prevents people from falsely reporting positive results that could generate false exposure notifications. VDH wants all users of the app to be confident that information about possible COVID-19 infection through the app is a real event. “
Most people won’t use contract tracking on their phone anyway.
Well, that’s all. While there are many reasons to be concerned about smartphone privacy, I don’t think the exposure notification API is the mountain you want to die on. I also don’t think it will be that big of a deal going forward, as there just isn’t enough universal mandate for everyone to use their phones to help fight COVID-19 exposure.
But even that leads us to an awkward privacy tradeoff. While I would really love it if Google and Apple allowed this API to be used on all phones, and even activate the appropriate (privacy-focused) app on all devices, while we are in the midst of this annoying pandemic, it would be a concern. Even if this step is taken in the interests of the common good, it will still seem excessive. And I would understand the collective concern, even based on a complete misunderstanding of how technology works, around mandatory digital tracking to combat the extreme stupidity of the coronavirus .
Of course, we allow all kinds of apps to regularly pump data from our devices, and that doesn’t seem to bother most people. Maybe I’m thinking too carefully, and the API and contact tracing app won’t bother you more than a new social network or a popular game. If that doesn’t scare you about privacy, why should you be so concerned about what is trying to keep you healthy and safe?