An update to England and Wales’s contact tracing app has been blocked for breaking the terms of an agreement made with Apple and Google, according to the BBC.
The plan had been to ask users to upload logs of venue check-ins if they tested positive for the virus. This could be used to warn others, according to the BBC. However, the two tech giants had explicitly banned such a function.
Under the terms that all health authorities signed up to in order to use Apple and Google’s privacy-centric contact-tracing tech, they had to agree not to collect any location data via the software. As a result, the BBC notes that Apple and Google refused to make the update available for download from their app stores last week, and have instead kept the old version live.
Last year Apple and Goole released application programming interfaces [APIs] that enable interoperability between Android and iOS devices using apps from public health authorities. These official apps are available for users to download via their respective app stores. Apple and Google have also worked to enable a broader Bluetooth-based contact tracing platform by building this functionality into the underlying platforms.
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