Germany Now Favors Apple-Google Contact Tracing API Over Home-Grown Solution

[MacRumors]

Germany said on Sunday it will use Apple and Google's decentralized contact tracing API, reversing course on its original intention to use its own solution to track the spread of coronavirus.

Last week, the German government said it would use its own home-grown technology for smartphone-based tracing of infections, based on a design that would hold personal data on a central server.

According to Reuters, however, Apple refused to support Germany's original solution, which came in for heavy criticism from scientists, not just for its mass surveillance style but because of issues with the system's methodology.

Germany as recently as Friday backed a centralised standard called Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT), which would have needed Apple in particular to change the settings on its iPhones.

When Apple refused to budge there was no alternative but to change course, said a senior government source.

In their joint statement, Chancellery Minister Helge Braun and Health Minister Jens Spahn said Germany would now adopt a "strongly decentralised" approach.

Apple and Google on Friday disclosed a series of changes to their upcoming COVID-19 contact tracing initiative, with a focus on even stronger privacy protections and accuracy.

Apple and Google are now referring to "contact tracing" as "exposure notification," a secure system that is intended to notify a person of potential exposure, augmenting broader contact tracing efforts that public health authorities are undertaking.

Other countries that have been at odds with Apple and Google's initiative include France and the United Kingdom, both of which intend to use government-designed apps for contact tracing.

France has gone so far as to ask Apple to remove a Bluetooth limitation in iOS so that its app can work on iPhones, but the limitation is an intentional security feature and Apple is unlikely to compromise its software, especially as it is developing its own solution.

Apple and Google are targeting this week for the release of the seed version of iOS and Android operating system updates, which will support these APIs to enable testing by public health authority developers. The software update will support iOS devices released in the last four years, dating back to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

Apple and Google revealed plans for its exposure notification initiative on April 10. The joint effort will use Bluetooth to alert users when they have potentially come in close contact with someone who later tests positive for COVID-19, on an opt-in basis.

Article Link: Germany Now Favors Apple-Google Contact Tracing API Over Home-Grown Solution

 

[alecgold]

Very nice, but how will it differentiate between close contacts and contacts trough walls, plexiglass, curtains etc when one gets infected? Or how will it calibrate individual devices to compensate for differences. Heck, if you wear it in a purse or in a pants pocket makes a rather large difference.
And we don’t know how long/close the proximity needs to be at what point during the infectious periode before. And the difference between sneezing/coughing or just breathing is huge.

I really would want this to work, but even besides security there are so many hurdles to tackle that it might never be useful.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Very good idea. Much better than trying homebrew solution.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

No, to any of this ********.

 

[ghanwani]

No means no!

 

[the future]

In German you call it the "normative Kraft des Faktischen" if previously stubborn people/politicians realize that there is no way around some basic, unconvenient facts – like Apple (and Google) not budging on the decentralized aspect of exposure notification – and (begrudgingly) alter their course. I'm just happy it happened so quickly in this case!

 

[appahappa]

So will it be ready for Covid22?

 

[bluush]

This is horrifying that people are going to these lengths. This is what the NSA is really after. Makes me want to go back to a land line.

 

[itsmilo]

I believe it when I see it. By the time they release anything, COVID-20 may already be here.

also I question people being willing enough to install it, especially here in Berlin and the whole „Stasi“ past.

just personal experience of course but family and friends don’t even use the GPS on their iPhone unless they r starting navigation. In this case they manually enable and disable it all the time.

 

[Elitegate]

Ok, no more software updates for my iPhone.

 

[Pupi]

This is honestly an awesome way of tracing infection and potentially helpful to put the world back on its rails sooner rather than later, but the paranoid crowd are going to ruin it for everyone else aren't they.

 

[recoil80]

Very good idea. Much better than trying homebrew solution.

And more reliable. Currently apps running custom solution may be suspended while in background so they'd be useless.
[automerge]1587980876[/automerge]

I believe it when I see it. By the time they release anything, COVID-20 may already be here.

also I question people being willing enough to install it, especially here in Berlin and the whole „Stasi“ past.

just personal experience of course but family and friends don’t even use the GPS on their iPhone unless they r starting navigation. In this case they manually enable and disable it all the time.

I think that's the idea, be ready for the next pandemic of for a sudden spike of COVID19 this fall/winter.
Besides, Apple and Google announced they'll integrate the tracking even more in a future release, so even without installing an app the tracking should be in place. Unless you disable Bluetooth completely, but it means no headphones or other accessories

 

[MacRaab]

This is honestly an awesome way of tracing infection and potentially helpful to put the world back on its rails sooner rather than later, but the paranoid crowd are going to ruin it for everyone else aren't they.

So much this!

 

[the future]

This is honestly an awesome way of tracing infection and potentially helpful to put the world back on its rails sooner rather than later, but the paranoid crowd are going to ruin it for everyone else aren't they.

Judging by the posts in this thread: yeah, they probably will.

 

[one more]

Good news, which means France will probably also eventually accept the Apple-Google model of it, despite the initial resistance.

 

[Porco]

I really think they should support all those iPhone 6 models with another update too, they could fix the mail bug for them at the same time.

Bluntly, it’s easier to sell more iPhones if the existing users are still alive to upgrade... (!)

 

[rikscha]

I believe it when I see it. By the time they release anything, COVID-20 may already be here.

also I question people being willing enough to install it, especially here in Berlin and the whole „Stasi“ past.

just personal experience of course but family and friends don’t even use the GPS on their iPhone unless they r starting navigation. In this case they manually enable and disable it all the time.

under Stasi regime the problem would have been solved by now just like in China ;-)

 

[interessiert]

This App is a step, but maybe senseless... Why?

Because:
1. This virus is contagious 4 days before first symptoms (fever, cough, loss of smell sense). The most transfer volume of this virus happens at the last day before first symptoms.
2. In about 50% of infections people have NO symptoms at all.
3. Symptoms and following testing needs about 2 days - the virus is contagious 5 to 7 days after first symptoms
4. The participants will be 70% in best case.
5. Compliance to go testing with symptoms will be about 65% in best case.

Holes like a cheese of Switzerland, called Emmentaler ;-)

Result: This is a clear snowball system and we get an enormous amount of alarm-messages, more or less depending on the built in parameter (distance and time) ...

Better instead of a bee swarm of testing people and alarm flood:

Give special contact shelter to the "risk people" with age over 65/70 years and all younger with health risks like weakness of immun system, lung diseases, heavy overweight of 30% up, heart diseases etc. and give freedom to the rest of population with some breaking measurements like masks, 1,5m distance rule, hygienic rules etc. – then we see what is earlier: Vaccination or immunization of 65% of the population that brings virus to stop.

 

[foobarbaz]

I think this headline overstates the change a bit.

There will still be a "homegrown" solution. They just decided to use Apple's API (after Apple agreed to add voluntary data submission to a centralized server) instead of the PEPP-PT framework, which is one of the two emerging European standards (and the same one that UK and France are still favoring).

This is a smart (but late) choice, because PEPP-PT seems dead in the water after they realized (after no less than 6 weeks of working on it) that their system won't work without modifying either mobile OS, and they failed to even talk to Apple and Google in time. The project is also bleeding contributors due to privacy concerns.

 

[Ed217]

The concept is good, but parts of it seem backwards. The first 3 steps are good, the last maybe less so.

Someone gets infected. The question is where they got it. Look at their contacts over the 14 days and compare that to others who recently got it in the same geo area. Look for commonality for the person who spread it. If, for example, 5 people got infected and all 5 had contact with the same person, that seems like good information. Send a notice to that person that they might be infected and to be tested at the minimum. That way no personal info is ever given directly.

 

[chucker23n1]

There will still be a "homegrown" solution. They just decided to use Apple's API (after Apple agreed to add voluntary data submission to a centralized server) instead of the PEPP-PT framework, which is one of the two emerging European standards (and the same one that UK and France are still favoring).

UK and France can "favor" it all they want; if Apple doesn't allow background apps with it, it's a non-starter.

 

[swm]

i like the idea. don't know how easy it is to spoof those beacon messages, but if the data exchange is bidirectional, it can work. in a crowded society alarm storms during an outbreak can be suppressed easily by setting an adaptive threshold when the 'you are probably infected' message is about to fire, or limiting the minimum alarm interval.

but that must be it, and no step further.
imagine if - for the sake of saving the healthy society - your phone would start behave differently, to encourage (read: force) you to visit a testing point. black mirror intensifies. differently tinted screen, flashing led, maybe some 'extra' info in all of your outgoing messages, like 'sent from my iPad and i am probably infected'
the hell is empty.

 

[cocky jeremy]

That'll be a no from me.

 

[strawberriesandcream]

The concept is good, but parts of it seem backwards. The first 3 steps are good, the last maybe less so.

Someone gets infected. The question is where they got it. Look at their contacts over the 14 days and compare that to others who recently got it in the same geo area. Look for commonality for the person who spread it. If, for example, 5 people got infected and all 5 had contact with the same person, that seems like good information. Send a notice to that person that they might be infected and to be tested at the minimum. That way no personal info is ever given directly.

That won't work since for privacy reasons they don't even track where you are, just who you were near to.

 

[gnasher729]

Very nice, but how will it differentiate between close contacts and contacts trough walls, plexiglass, curtains etc when one gets infected? Or how will it calibrate individual devices to compensate for differences. Heck, if you wear it in a purse or in a pants pocket makes a rather large difference.
And we don’t know how long/close the proximity needs to be at what point during the infectious periode before. And the difference between sneezing/coughing or just breathing is huge.

I really would want this to work, but even besides security there are so many hurdles to tackle that it might never be useful.

You can only see problems. What you are missing is that there is no need for this to be perfect. It only needs to be good enough to reduce the number of infections. If you get infected, and five people who were close to you get informed plus one who was one meter away but behind a door, no harm done. Warning the five is much more important than not warning the one.