The Unforgettable Efforts Of Google And Apple Against Corona Pandemic

The corona pandemic is still wreaking havoc in the global economy, forcing businesses to shutter down, and people stay locked in their homes. Among this crisis, tech giants like Apple and Google have decided to join forces to come up with the automatic contact-tracking system to track down the infected people who are hiding their travel history to prevent the quarantine. The objective of this merge is to reduce the spread of the pandemic with the help of technology. 

These new apps that are paired with smarter features can be one of the biggest measures to reduce the growth of the fast-spreading illness. However, general concerns like health, data reliability, and data privacy have limited the impact of these apps.

The pandemic and health burden

The sudden strike in the total number of patients has overburden the healthcare sector and worldwide economies with over 4.9 million cases. In the US alone more than 1.5 million confirmed cases of a pandemic resulting in 90,000 deaths as on May 26.

The effectiveness of the traditional apps has been improved

Apple and Google’s exposure notification application programming interface will now be able to available to the states and other health agencies that are putting efforts to put a stop to this pandemic. These agencies can use the API to build apps to notify people if they have come into contact with the Coronavirus infected people.

The API is available in the smartphones through the latest updates in iOS and Android systems that the company launched on 20th May 2020.

The joint statement highlighted that “Google that is known for online marketing solution decided to work with a known brand like Apple for weeks while reaching out public health officials, scientists, privacy groups and government leaders to get the input and guidance to finally come up with the API” they further explained that technology they have created is not an app. 

Public health officials can use this API to create apps that people will install to get updated information about the pandemic. Together they have created a technology that can make these apps work better.

According to the joint statement the users can decide whether they want to share their personal information or data like location with the system or not. If the person is already diagnosed with the COVID-19 then, it is up to him or her whether they want to report it to health officials or not. The companies also believe that strong privacy protections will also encourage people to downloads these apps.

“The North Dakota is excited to become of the first few states in the nation to utilize this advanced software to keep its citizens safe” Doug Burgum, Governor of North Dakota, announced that in a statement.

What about the privacy concern?

The API and apps have raised privacy concerns. According to a recent survey, it was found that half of the Americans would not use such apps or similar tools designed by Apple and Google over privacy concerns.

However, Apple and Google both pledged to shut down the coronavirus tracker when this pandemic ends. Right now, we are not sure whether this advanced tracking API is going to work or not at least they are making efforts to protect the nation that has been brought to its knees by this pandemic. And if we want to win this war against the corona, we may need to stand together as a nation.