hey everyone welcome back to today in tech I'm Juliet Beauchamp
I'm here with computer world executive editor ken Mingis as well as PCworld
and Macworld's Michael Simon. Google and Apple recently delivered the API for
their contact tracing app to public health authorities but how likely is it
that this is going to make a meaningful difference in identifying and stopping
the spread of koban 19 stick around
alright guys thank you so much for joining me
so as I mentioned you know before we started recording this up I actually
have a video that I will link below that I sort of covered the privacy
implications of an app that would ping you if you have been exposed to someone
who has been diagnosed with cover 19 so the way that this app would work and
it's important to note that it's not just one app each Public Health
Authority is going to develop their own app based off of the API that Google and
Apple delivered it's there are some privacy concerns and that could lead to
people that's not necessarily installing it so that's pretty much issue number
one but I'm curious about first of all your thoughts and second of all this is
a pretty historic moment that Google and Apple are working together in a really
big way so I'd also like to hear your thoughts
on that so Ken let's go with you sure you know
it's interesting that this API is now out you know and you do make a point it
is a historic moment for Apple and Google of course it's a historic moment
for all of us as we live through this pandemic when it comes to using the API
and and public health agencies that have asked about that I think there have been
three states so far Nebraska South Carolina and one more that that's asked
about using it you know the concern that I have is you can put all the technology
out there that you want and if you've got this fractured sort of approach to
dealing with the pandemic you know aside from privacy there you're gonna have
multiple public health agencies that are sort sort of setting up their own
contact tracing systems gonna have the natural reluctance of
people to just stick something on their phone you're gonna have people who may
not believe that the pandemic is real and you know Juliet is we were talking
before we started recording that the main issue here is that if you don't get
I think 60% you know of users using this I mean this list let's say everybody
with a mobile trust a smartphone actually downloads and is using this not
everybody has a smartphone you know and so you're there's gonna be a certain
percentage it's left out anyway so I think it's great that Google and Apple
are working together to try to do something like this but you know my
concern is that we're gonna wind up with this sort of Swiss cheese kind of
contact tracing system where some places it may be you know heavily use in other
places it won't be used at all and as we know as we've seen with the pandemic it
doesn't respect boundaries so just because you're not using it doesn't mean
you're not in danger I don't know Mike do you do you disagree or do you see it
sort of the same way what do you think yeah and it's not really a disagreement
but um I mean theoretically the way it would work is you wouldn't necessarily
need to have a smart phone to benefit from the results if enough people are
using it we would know or the health officials in your state would know at
this time and in this place if you were there you likely were possibly exposed
to coronavirus and use your quarantine yourself for and they could publish that
on a website they can publish that in a newspaper you know if you were at the
big wise supermarket at 1:15 on Friday you know get checked because somebody in
that store at that time had it now as far as the privacy implications go maybe
I'm real Pollyanna about this but I don't really see any it's all inanimate
it's all anonymized like Apple or Google doesn't know where you were they know
this string of numbers that represent a person which are also updated and
changed on a regular basis so like what mine the number today is gonna be
different tomorrow so there's very little way unless someone is
extraordinarily meticulously calculating and tracking all of these things behind
the scenes which is I mean like 99.99% unlikely to happen
it's it's a public service app where I would know at this time if I was in a
certain location this person that was also in that same location at the same
time is me tested positive at some point I mean yes
you can put on your tinfoil hat and extrapolate this and say well it's all
it's all the way to track and cellphones about I honestly think that Google and
Apple here are being as altruistic as they can they developed this separate
from any kind of government mandate they did it together in partnership which we
know we know I wouldn't call them enemies but they certainly aren't
friends and they did it relatively quickly I mean it's been about what six
weeks since we first heard that they were working on it and now it's here now
I was reading on Twitter yesterday of course as I do and people were saying
how dare you push this update to my phone that turns on tracking and and and
you know on them because if you have one amount of cup dates on it automatically
up to fit it over none if your phone is plugged in that didn't happen nothing is
tracking anything right now anywhere all this is is it enables health departments
in your state to develop an app that hooks up to your phone and allows this
to work and secondly it's off by default so nothing is working
nothing is tracking no information is being sent anywhere it's complete and
total misinformation so your privacy right now is 100% solid I do think sorry
I've got a dog in LA I do think the issue here around privacy is not so much
legitimate I don't think there are privacy concerns I think it's it is the
tinfoil hat conspiracy sort of you know feelings of users that they're being
trapped and you know every time you add something like okay it's not
automatically downloaded to your phone that makes sense but you know you are
gonna have to get an app from like the State Health Department CDC the NHS in
the UK something like that then you have to turn it on every time you take one of
those steps you're adding another grain of sand into the gears of getting as
many people as possible on the system that
doesn't mean that people won't necessarily jump through that I mean
they're very I'm not saying they're really you know these should not stop
anybody from you know opting into the system but I think just natural human
you know human nature every time something somebody has to click
something turn on something download something it's just one more step sort
of you know filters out a few more people and I just think it's gonna be
tough and also I you know if I'm understanding this correctly this even
you know with this API out now and public health agencies starting to
integrate it it's gonna be end of the year maybe into twenty twenty one before
enough people would have it to to make a difference so yes important everybody
should I think you know based on what I know use it but we're talking six months
or more out before you really need this one has happened slowly in bureaucracy
we we all know that and you know the local governments are all involved in
all this because they had to because they have to there's there's gonna be
one app per state it's not gonna be your town has one in the next town over it's
a different one and yeah they have to figure out who is making in and how
they're making it and works with it and hopefully it works and there's a lot a
lot of steps here it would be great if Apple could push an app but that's never
gonna happen because some states are gonna sign on some states can't won't
don't want to don't understand it blah blah blah it's never gonna work so it
has to be local and you know as we've seen some states will jump on it and do
it another stage alone some states can afford to do in other states can't it's
it's a it's a it's a whole thing my concern too is it oh go ahead do it um
just to clear up exactly like sort of how the app itself works like you made a
point that it is anonymized data and it's not GPS data so it's I mean it's
Bluetooth data so instead of you know I I go to the grocery store and I sent out
and then later I get my test results back from my doctor and I'm able to
confirm yes I was diagnosed with cope of nineteen I can go into the app say okay
you know send out a push to anyone who came within contact of my phone with
likes I think it's like six and a half it's all local it's local localized data
yeah it's all bluetooth it's not it won't be you won't get a push
notification to your phone that says hey someone at Trader Joe's when you went on
Monday was diagnosed with Cove in 1980 all say you know at some point you were
within six feet or someone and okay exactly but the only place you want was
Trader Joe's obviously that makes it pretty easy to identify you know where
you came into contact with that person but you know you don't know if you were
in the cheese aisle or if you were in the cereal aisle right it's pretty
anonymized and yeah can you also made a good point about roll out it's going to
take a while and I think that's why it sort of adds a bit of a layer perhaps of
the criticism that you know contract craziness something that we need now
it's widely seen by public health authorities as the necessary step to or
the necessary next step to reopening a lot of states because you need a really
sophisticated and effective way to track and trace every single time that's
someone who was diagnosed with Koba 19 has been in contact with someone so this
is sort of like the tech answer to it and I noticed that instead of calling it
contact tracing they're now calling it exposure notification because I think it
seems that especially state health departments and some states are at the
forefront of this more than others I mean Massachusetts for one I think
California I want to say Illinois Georgia are some of the other ones that
are rolling out human contact tracing where instead of an app it's I'm in
contact with my local health department and they are asking me the names and
numbers of the people that I've come into contact with and when they reach
out to that those people and say hey you came into contact with someone with
kovin 19 and they are offering not just that expose your notification that an
app would but they're also offering resources next steps what to do so it's
sort of that person-to-person contact seems like it's the next step of contact
tracing so it'll be interesting to see once the app is actually released how
effective it will be and what kind of use there is for it if
some states don't already have a robust human tracing program yeah you know and
this sort of plays on the point I was going to make which is that to fight
something like this you really do need a comprehensive
top to bottom and a consistent message and I think that's something we have not
seen worldwide either here in the US in other countries where you know my
concern is that you're going to have people who take a nap you know whether
it's a notification app which is a good thing or a tracing app which is a bad
thing but who will take it thing you know about as seriously as they take
wearing masks I mean in the few times that I've been out to the store you know
most people wearing masks but even now I'm seeing people out who you know and
I'm thinking okay you know you don't care about yourself you clearly don't
care about people around you enough to either wear a mask
are you and you know and unfortunately the people who may be more likely to
come into contact with someone with coronavirus are are the very people who
might be likely to opt out or not take part in something like this that's my
fear I don't know I shouldn't generalize but you know there seems to be sort of a
very lazy fair attitude toward dealing with this and this you know and again it
does go back to inconsistent messaging about masks and contact tracing /
notifications / privacy and you know and and then again the time time constraints
or the the fact that some take so long roll it out it's a good thing you know I
do think it is it actually says a lot about where we are that Google and Apple
you know join forces here to come up with something that works across you
know across their devices and their systems I think that that's the first
time something that's happened right Mike I mean as far as I know Google has
lots of apps in the App Store and things work and you know you have third-party
keyboard a G board is under my phone like they are in the sense that they use
their API is to work on each other's platforms I can't think of another
certainly not an effort this large you know this is a global effort where they
clearly were in close contact with each other and working on isn't it to get it
out quickly so yeah I can't think of another certainly not recently where
they've they've done anything that's this this major and on this scale
yeah I didn't think so yeah and I can't imagine them doing again short of some
other you know crisis that threatens the world I mean they are as you say they're
not exactly they're not even really frenemies they'll you know but but they
are the big league players and they did step up here ending yeah right I mean
they have their they have their issues and they have their they're competing
platforms I mean you know in a perfect world they could be you know partners
you know a lot on a lot of different areas and you know maybe this will open
up lines of communication and lines for future development but you know as you
say you know all these companies they're called competing for the same dollars
and that's ultimately what matters so I can't imagine that we'll see a Apple
powered pixel phone at some point in the future or vice versa yeah yeah yeah no I
don't think I want an Android powered iPhone and important to note too just to
give a little background on how like why it's so important that Apple and Google
are teaming up I mean to state perhaps the obvious it's because on previous
apps you didn't necessarily have that built-in intra interoperability I hope I
said that right it's a hard word between Android and iOS hmm I said it sounded it
sounded good to me awesome so you didn't you don't
necessarily have that interoperability between iOS and Android because I mean
by the nature of the fact that you know one's Google one's Apple so on previous
iterations of contact tracing apps or exposure notification apps that other
states in the US and even other countries around the world have rolled
out you didn't have that ability so the big the big reason why Apple and Google
have teamed up together is so if I'm in the grocery store and the person you
know next to me in the milk aisle has an Android our phones are still talking to
each other it's not dependent on you know my phones only talking to other
iPhones and their androids only talking to other androids audition go for bike I
was going to say you can up to that point you can also argue that Apple and
Google are pretty continuer privacy more than they're
hurting it in the sense that if you type in covent 19 tracking or tracing into
the App Store and you get a hundred different results you don't know what
those apps are doing so they're essentially shutting down that kind of
cottage industry of who knows what tracing apps in favor of one app that's
gonna do everything that you needed or wanted to do whether or not we ever get
it is another question well yeah but I you know I do think to
here that the fact that and that Google and Apple are working together you know
Apple does have a reputation which it is played up but I think is legit for being
privacy focused Google has less of a reputation around privacy when it comes
to sharing data and collecting data they've gotten stronger with it but yeah
they have they have but I mean just relative to each other and I do think
that you know that place to the strengths of both of the companies here
which is basically Google saying you know apples working with us you know
they have a good reputation for privacy maybe you're a little concerned about us
but you trust Apple more and Apple can you know can say Android is everywhere
you know we're reaching a much bigger group of people worldwide than we would
if we just did this on our own I mean coronavirus is not an apple thing
or an Android thing it's uh you know illness and it's clear that this isn't
it this isn't a vehicle to sell phones this is a vehicle to keep people safe
and end this things that we can get back to our normal lives and you know
unfortunately there's a lot of people who are getting the wrong information or
don't believe the information they're getting and none of this is gonna work
and none of it is gonna be useful and lets people you know understand that
this is a serious issue there are no cures for it there's no vaccine yet and
so the only way to stop it is to know if you were in contact with someone who had
it yea attested and it's positive quarantine for two to three weeks that's
it that's the only way and watch your damn hands that's it yeah I talked to my
son about this all the time because you know like he'll go outside and come back
again I say wash your hands though I just did no no
like you don't understand like this is it is it one thing that we can do for
sure to keep us safe is to wash our hands that's it so do it you know it's
it's it's it's until we get to that point where we have a vaccine which
could take months maybe even over a year so we know what to do if you go out wear
a mask wash your hands and if you've AB comms install it and you'll be better
off or and everyone around you will be you make the point and maybe this is the
best way to wrap it up which is that you know technology can deliver the tools
which clearly Apple and Google have done as you know as you know it in six weeks
which is pretty quick but it's up to people to actually use them yeah and you
know not spread information that they're trying to use this as a tool to get all
your information it's misinformation here yes I agree yeah so the tools there
yeah we gotta see if people use it now yeah exactly we probably won't have that
great of an idea of how effective they are until the public health agencies in
each state country start releasing and deploying these apps and I think then
we'll have a better idea once we do have a better idea this seems like a great
topic to revisit so we'll have you guys back on to chat about it but otherwise
thank you both so much my hair will be down to my knees by that way - ooh at
this point all right well thank you both so much for calling in and talking all
about exposure exposure notification exposure interoperability I can't say
anything today and thank you all so much for watching this episode of today in
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if you have any comments questions concerns about a contact tracing nap let
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we'll see you next time