Apple and Google set up a coronavirus patient tracking system

Exposure Notifications is not a ready-made application, but only an API on the basis of which each country or agency can create its own applications. The API is provided subject to voluntary installation and non-tracking of the user's location.

"Exposure Notifications It’s not based on GPS data, but on the signals of the ubiquitous Bluetooth interface on smartphones. Since the range of Bluetooth is limited, the device ID of a person infected with a coronavirus read by the user’s device allows us to talk about a potentially dangerous contact”, - thebell.io notes.

But, as the developers say, their technology will allow the created applications to work better, while all users will be able to disable Exposure Notifications. They hope that maximum protection of personal data will be the best way to promote tools among users.

Access to the new development has already received 22 countries and several US states. The authorities of North Dakota intend to use this system only at the stage of lifting restrictions on the coronavirus: for example, those who dine at the same restaurant with the infected will receive anonymous notifications.

In Moscow, meanwhile, patients with a coronavirus complain about the Social Monitoring system for monitoring them, which the city authorities are demanding to establish. “How can I help a coronavirus sufferer if the hospital runs out of space? Send me home for self-treatment. For reliability, make me take a selfie in bed every 20 minutes (at night too). Show me fines, fines, fines. One photo session you missed - four thousand from you. Want to argue in court - a fine for leaving the apartment", - patients complained about the application. Some of them said that the application woke them at night, but while in the dark they were looking for a phone - they notified of a fine. Also, patients noted that the phone was quickly discharged from the application, and while it was being charged, again a “message of happiness” came about a new fine. If a person refuses to download such an application, then the first three days they receive sms-reminders, then the first fine is set. “I hope that the last thing you see before you die is a camera flash when you take a photo”, - people write messages to officials who came up with the application.

In total, users of the Social Monitoring application, which monitors the whereabouts of Muscovites with the identified coronavirus COVID-19, have already been charged fines in the amount of more than 216 million rubles, but the city authorities after numerous complaints provided the opportunity to challenge these fines.