Apple and Google set to release two early versions of their contact tracing app to developers

Apple and Google have begun testing technology designed to enable apps that track the spread of COVID-19. 

According to a report form The Verge, after a test phase started this week the companies are set to release a first version of an application programming interface (API) to some developers working for public health agencies in the weeks ahead. 

Those APIs will enable apps to interface with Google and Apple’s data banks to extract things like Bluetooth information gleaned from peoples’ smartphones. 

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Bluetooth information coupled with testing data will allow future apps to inform people if they’ve come in contact with someone who has been confirmed to carry the virus. 

The Bluetooth information can be used to establish proximity to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 and also how long one has been in proximity to an infected person. 

That data is calculated on-device and is encrypted. It is not shared with either Google or Apple in the process. 

It will be up to public health agencies to determine a threshold for how close and how long a brush with an infected person has to be to constitute a warning notification.

An app would allow public health agencies to alert people who may have been exposed and enable those people to either quarantine or seek testing. 

The companies are expected to release their APIs on a larger scale midway through next month according to The Verge. 

Whether the apps will be effective in helping prevent the spread of COVID-19, however, is an open question.

According to a recent survey by Washington Post-University of Maryland, three out of five Americans are either unable or unwilling to use contact tracing technology that uses a phone’s Bluetooth signal to track the spread of COVID-19. 

Among the barriers to adoption are a distrust of Google and Apple as well as a lack of general concern over becoming infected from the virus according to the survey.

A recent study by Oxford researchers determined that at least 60 percent of people in any given country would need to adopt the technology in order for it to be effective in assessing the virus’ spread.