Coronavirus: Apple and Google to collaborate to fight the epidemic

Google and Apple competitors now allies in the fight against coronavirus. Emmanuel DUNAND, Loic VENANCE / AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

Post-containment will pose a new challenge. To avoid a new epidemic outbreak, the idea of ​​digital tracing is gaining ground. Competitors Apple and Google are now joining forces to allow data tracing.

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The two American giants of new technologies have announced their common goal: "To help reduce the spread of the virus, while integrating user privacy and security at the heart of the design ". Concretely, your mobile phone would transmit information via Bluetooth with the smartphones of the people you meet. If you fall ill, those you have met will be warned and vice versa.

A system based on volunteering

The Apple IOS and Google Android operating systems are the most widely used in the world. And from May, their users will be able to share content from official applications of public health authorities. Applications downloadable from the online stores of the two groups. This to ward off as quickly as possible, at first.

In a second step, Apple and Google plan to develop a broader contact tracking platform. It would allow more people to take part in the system, still on a voluntary basis.

What about people without smartphones?

Despite the promises of the two brands, experts do not agree on the impact on respect for privacy. The ACLU, the civil rights organization in the United States fears, it, social inequalities and that the most vulnerable are in fact excluded from the device.

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  • Coronavirus
  • Google
  • Digital
  • Health and Medicine