Tech Giants Come Together to Trace Society
Source - Apple.com
In difficult times, even the most ambitious partnerships seem possible. Almost like your two favourite superhero rivals teaming up together to beat the final boss in an epic arc. Our saga for the last few months has been all about coronavirus and I talked about how technology firms will need to step in to make a difference. China and Asia had already shown off technology solutions to help track and slow the virus and it would appear the biggest of them all will be teaming up to help strike back at the pandemic that continues to encompass the world. The characters would be no other than the famous Apple and Google who are joining hands to build tracking technology into their operating systems. Sounds weird, invasive but probably not all too bad, we hope.
We have already seen surveillance being used to track coronavirus spread, one must track people as it spread through social interactions on a daily basis. The majority of a population carry a phone today in modern society, even my smallest of nephews and nieces have a smartphone. Singapore had already revealed its app plans to alert users through local anonymous data to inform those who had crossed path with an infected person to isolate or seek assistance. I mentioned that social stigmatism could arise out of this, refusal of service in some place could emerge with proof of a clean trail via smartphone. Speculation, but a possibility.
Technology developed by GApple (my own working name in progress) will first let public health services build local scanning technology and anonymous data collection into their apps. Tracing tech has already been used in countries in Asia, especially post SARS outbreak but it is the first time to see movements of open tracking being introduced for the rest of the world. I’ve mentioned previously that much of this relies on acceptance of data collection and handover. Understanding how data is handled is very important and it will be interesting to see just how the tech firm’s deal with concerns, pushback from the public may still be something to consider moving forwards. At times like this, it makes me wonder if the world decentralization and anonymity (to some extent) can play a role in all of this. I am not quite sure how to feel about tracing technology being baked into operating systems but a review upon release will be needed to get a bigger picture of what’s to come and how it will effect the rest of society that have become reliant on both of these companies.
