Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission.Learn more.
Google and Apple join together to fight COVID-19 by tracking our movements
June 24, 2025
Today, Google and Apple made a rare showing of solidarity bypartnering togetherto help fight the spread ofCOVID-19. The two companies will help with so-called “contact tracing” by helping coronavirus apps form a location history of infected individuals.
This will be achieved through an application programming interface (API) Google and Apple will introduce soon, with a more rigorous method coming later.
Theoretically, the way it could work is as follows:
Both Google and Apple say that these contact tracing methods through supported coronavirus apps will keep “user privacy and security central to the design.” Although the API isn’t out yet so we can’t say for certain, it’s likely there will be some form of end-to-end encryption that prevents anyone from knowing the specific names of people who have been infected.
The API that enables this will come sometime in May, according to Google and Apple.
The companies plan to then take contact tracing a step further by enabling “a broader Bluetooth-based contact tracing platform” by building the previously described functionality directly into Android and iOS. This should, theoretically, allow for the method above to work even if people don’t have the required apps (although the companies say you will still need to manually opt-in).
Once again, we haven’t seen any of this in action yet, so how this API works, how Bluetooth will be involved, and which coronavirus apps and health apps will be supported isn’t known at the moment. All we know is that Google and Apple are coming together to make it as easy as possible for developers to use contact tracing to help stop the spread of the disease.
Thank you for being part of our community. Read ourComment Policybefore posting.
