Nick Heer reminded me that shortly after Apple and Google announced their Exposure Notification System, the Washington Post ran a story criticizing the plan, quoting public health officials concerned that the EN system wouldn’t provide location data and other information that would enable contact tracing.
Myoung Cha lead the Exposure Notifications (EN) team at Apple. The team had high hopes for their privacy-preserving approach to notifications, but the technology was not widely adopted in the United States.
He finds data collection and Google frameworks in many iOS COVID-19 apps.
I’ve been thinking about COVID risk — how we measure it and how to choose activities that are worthwhile. Like many places in the US, here in Virginia most schools are opening remotely. It’s a decision that pretty much nobody is happy with, but that may prove to be for the best.
An app by the Virginia Department of Health enables COVID-19 Exposure Notifications for your phone. Should you install it if you’re not in Virginia?