Apple and Google, two historic rivals, came together for the sake of public health. Many were surprised by the turn of events. Here's how it happened.
in Singapore used a phone's Bluetooth signal, which has a range of about 30 feet, to figure out when two phones were near each other. Strong signals suggest that two people are very close, while weak ones suggest that they're too far apart for there to be potential exposure .
Cha and a small team at Apple were already exploring methods of using smartphones for contact tracing. The early team included Ron Huang, who runs Apple's location services group, and Dr. Guy "Bud" Tribble, a veteran Apple software vice president who is referred to internally as the "privacy czar.
The Apple team also believed any system would need to be "opt-in," where the individual gives consent to share information with other phones. It wasn't a foregone conclusion that the two companies, which have a long history of bitter competition in smartphones, would cooperate. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was convinced that Android had been built to mimic Apple's iOS, and the two companies had a bitter legal fight before. Although they coexist more peacefully now, they're still tough rivals, with the two dominant smartphone platforms in the world.
To ensure user privacy, the companies have lifted ideas from various open-source efforts like MIT's PACT and Europe's DP-3T. Google's Burke has acknowledged that his team was specifically inspired by the work of DP-3T, nothing that he thought it "gives the best privacy preserving aspects of the contacts tracing service."
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