New feature for COVID-19 contact tracing available on smartphones

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Many smartphones now have a new feature designed to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The feature, called “COVID-19 exposure logging,” is a joint venture between Apple and Google. It was announced in April and is now showing up on smartphones and uses Bluetooth to inform users if they’ve been exposed to the virus.

“This is the first time I’ve heard about it,” said Jeff Allen, an Indianapolis resident.

If you have an iPhone, you can access the exposure logging by tapping “privacy” and then tapping “health.” You can’t turn it on unless you download a separate authorized public health authority app that can send exposure notifications.

“The idea behind this is if people have these apps on their phones, and they’re turned on, and the Bluetooth is on, that we could see the proximity to one another, like at the grocery store,” said Thomas Duszynski, director of epidemiology education at Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis.

Once you opt in, the feature exchanges random Bluetooth identifiers with other phones of people that also have the feature turned on. If you’ve come in contact with someone who’s positive for COVID-19, you get a notification about what to do next .

If you’re concerned about privacy with this feature, Apple and Google say you can turn the feature off at any time and it doesn’t collect location data from your device. The exposure logging will not share the identities of users with other users. The feature will also not share user’s identities with Google or Apple.

“I think people have that concern, rightly so in this situation,” Duszynski said. “I think some of these apps are going to experience the same thing we have been experiencing in public health, that people simply don’t want to share some of that information.”

Apple and Google posted a response to some of the most commonly asked questions they’ve heard from users.