Germany flips to Apple-Google approach on smartphone contact tracing for coronavirus
- As recently as Friday, Germany backed a centralised standard which would have given health authorities central control over coronavirus tracing data
- Berlin now says it will adopt a ‘decentralised’ approach to bluetooth-based contact tracing, in line with a proposal by Apple and Google
Countries are rushing to develop apps to give a detailed picture of the risk of catching the coronavirus, as the chain of infection is proving hard to break because it can be spread by those showing no symptoms.
In Europe, most countries have chosen short-range Bluetooth “handshakes” between mobile devices as the best way of registering a potential contact, even though it does not provide location data.
But they have disagreed about whether to log such contacts on individual devices or on a central server – which would be more directly useful to existing contact tracing teams that work phones and knock on doors to warn those who may be at risk.
Under the decentralised approach, users could opt to share their phone number or details of their symptoms – making it easier for health authorities to get in touch and give advice on the best course of action in the event they are found to be at risk.