Android announced more than a week ago an initiative that could be extremely important, the Google company collaborating with those from Apple to implement, including in iOS, a user tracking system. It is integrated to facilitate the monitoring of people's movements in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic in order to be able to detect early possible contacts with infected people, and Android would play a huge role, just like iOS.
Android it still has some limitations, for people's safety, just like iOS, and now the French government is asking Google to remove those safety limitations to be able to track people more easily. The French government comes up with this request because although Android and iOS phones can communicate with each other to transmit certain data, what reaches the authorities is very limited, and apparently it would not allow the correct identification of people, even the infected ones.
Android: URGENT request for Google that sparks controversy
Android it would need substantial changes to the way it works, just like iOS, and Google must decide whether to reduce the level of protection it offers to customers. In the middle of the month, Android will launch the special system that allows the monitoring of people's phones and communication with iOS to detect contacts, but many governments want until then to launch their own applications to do this, but of course more limited.
"France has become the first country to publicly call on Apple and Google to loosen privacy protections around digital contact tracking, after its government admitted its current plans won't work without changes to smartphone operating systems. The criticism comes two weeks after a landmark collaboration between the two companies to build technology to enable digital contact tracing apps to track contacts between users in a bid to help slow the spread of Covid-19."
Android will allow, after the middle of May, the use of special APIs that allow easier communication with iOS and easier monitoring of people, and government applications will have to be updated. Android will be able to communicate with iOS even without such applications, and will be able to alert people if they have been in contact with a person infected with the new Coronavirus without needing anything other than the collaboration of governments to confirm the infections.
Android this initiative was developed for the first time by Google in an unprecedented collaboration with Apple, but of course there are many criticisms about it.
