Earlier this year,
Apple and Google teamed up to offer
a unified framework that would
allow contact tracing during
this coronavirus pandemic.
But should we really trust it? I mean,
what about our privacy? Can
we even turn this thing off?
The truth about Apple and
Google's contact tracing.
Today, on Governing Goliath.
In April of 2020, Apple and
Google, in a rare act of unity,
announced a collaboration to help save
humanity from the coronavirus pandemic
through their use of
modern technology. See,
some variant of either Google's
Android platform or Apple's iOS
platform run on almost every
smartphone on the planet.
And there were about 3.8
billion smartphone users,
last time I checked.
The theory is that if they could
somehow use the technology that is
already embedded in each and
every one of those devices
or contact tracing,
then we'd be able to slow the
spread of this deadly global
pandemic.
It's important to note that what Apple
and Google developed isn't actually an
app itself. It's actually much better.
They collaborated on a cross platform,
application programming interface,
or an API,
that developers of specialized
applications can plug
into. In other words,
they laid a solid concrete
and secure foundation,
but it's up to the general contractors,
that's the developers in tech speak,
to build the actual house or
the application as it were.
They did this in part to allow
individual countries, states,
and even regional municipalities
to develop their own contact
tracing application that best
suits the needs of that culture and
dialect for that particular region.
One important prerequisite of this
seemingly altruistic framework
is access to the Bluetooth technology
that's already embedded in every
smartphone.
See Bluetooth is the perfect conduit for
smartphone contact racing because it is
an already established communication
protocol that is built on the
principle of low energy
wireless transmission.
Which just simply means that you
can run it in the background of your
phone without excessively
draining your battery.
Apps created with this new API
framework will be able to anonymously
log every other phone that comes into
contact within the Bluetooth signal
radius of yours.
And if owners of any of those
phones report that they've
tested positive for the
Corona virus,
your phone will send you a notification
that you should probably get tested
as well. In theory,
apps that are developed on this API
should be able to log the length of
time that you've been in contact
with each infected cell phone owner.
And how far away you were from them
based on the strength of your Bluetooth
data signals. Look,
I get the level of trepidation that
you probably have with allowing your
phone to conduct contact tracing
during this pandemic. Remember,
I too hold modern technology with
a healthy dose of skepticism.
You know,
I'm the guy who reported on the NSA's
ability to listen in on everything you
say by pointing their lasers
at your home's light bulbs.
So how long do you think it'll
take before the FBI and CIA make
quick work of this lamp
phone attack? I mean,
what are the odds that
they're using it already?
I'm also the guy who warned you
that TicTock is stealing your
information, and probably, sharing
it with the Chinese government. .
TicTock has been declared
fundamentally parasitic,
a data collection service
for the Communist Party of
China that just pretends to
be a social media network.
So how exactly is TicTock
stealing your information? I mean,
what the hell is in this thing?
But I honestly am not afraid of
enabling this contact tracing API.
And I will definitely be using this
feature as soon as an application is
developed for my region. Which is Florida.
So it may take awhile.
But if you don't want to
take my lead and you're still
skeptical of the anonymity that this
Apple Google contact tracing framework
provides, you can simply
turn off the API itself.
This will render the applications that
could potentially use that framework to
be completely useless.
So here's how to do it on
Android. Open settings,
then tap Google and COVID-19
exposure notifications.
You'll be met with a ton of information
about how exposure tracking works.
Plus two settings that won't be active
until you install a compatible app.
One of those settings is to delete
all the random IDs that your phone has
collected. And the other is to
turn off the feature completely.
On an iPhone with iOS 13.7,
you can go straight to settings,
then exposure notifications.
Exposure notice notifications
is off by default.
If you have a serious trust issue,
you can just leave this option off and
turn off the availability alerts while
you're at it.
This way you won't be nagged to
help save humanity when an app
finally becomes available in your region.
But if you want to help save humanity,
which is the right thing to do here,
you can opt to turn on notifications.
This will take you to an info page that
explains in greater detail how this type
of contact tracing works. Then you'll
hit continue to select your region.
First by country. Then
by state, if applicable.
As I mentioned earlier, I live in Florida.
So we unfortunately probably will be
one of the last States to adopt this
approach. But when it does come available,
I will know because I have that
availability alerts setting
switched to on.
According to this
exposure notification FAQ,
published by Apple and Google,
here's how it'll work once I'm
finally able to use contact tracing on
my phone. Say Bob and Alice are
hanging out in a park bench one day.
During this time,
their phones exchange random Bluetooth
identifier numbers that actually change
about every 20 minutes or so.
This random number change
is what keeps Alice and Bob
anonymized. A few days later,
Bob feels sick and is
diagnosed with COVID-19.
So he tells us app that he got a
positive test result. With Bob's consent,
his phone uploads the random numbers
that he's come in contact with over the
past couple of weeks.
Alice meanwhile has no idea that
she's been potentially near a
contagious person until her phone
gives her a notification that will
probably recommend that she get tested.
Here's the thing you need
to know and understand.
Because of how the API
manages the randomization of
these temporary ID numbers,
there is simply no way
that Alice will ever
know that Bob was the infected
person she came in contact with.
And at the same time,
there's no way that Bob will know
that his positive test result is what
ultimately alerted Alice.
And because Alice is being proactive
and hopefully getting a testing
diagnosis on our own before
she developed symptoms,
she's in a better position to manage
her health, which could save her life.
She's also able to self quarantine,
thereby minimizing the spread of the
Corona virus that she would be ultimately
responsible for. This is
how we can beat this thing.
This is how we can finally
get back to normal.
The best advice that I can give
you is not to listen to these wacky
conspiracy theories or believe
obvious misinformation about how
contact tracing is some sort of nefarious
government tool designed to take away
your freedom.
The truth about Apple and Google's
approach to smartphone contact tracing is
that it is one of the few tools that
we have to actually claw our way back
to some type of normalcy.
And all we have to do is enable it on
our smart phones and get tested when
we need to, to help stop the
spread of this deadly pandemic.
Tell me what you think about smartphone
contact tracing in the comment section
and check out my research in the
description below. Thanks for watching.
And I'll see you again twice a week.
