COVID Contact Tracing Apps Are Far From Perfect

Back in April, Apple and Google made waves with the announcement of their “contact tracing technology,” which would leverage smartphones to alert people if they had come into contact with someone who would later test positive for COVID-19. Apps are now trickling out piecemeal across states, cities, and colleges. Some apps are using Apple and Google’s technology, while others are using their own approaches.

Unlike other tools people have to address the pandemic, however, there’s little evidence showing that these contact tracing apps work, and they bring with them a host of questions about privacy.

Even if any app operated perfectly all the time, no app is a panacea capable of leading society out of the pandemic on its own. All technology brings an assortment of ifs and uncertainties. Gennie Gebhart, acting activism director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sums up the disjointed situation this way: “We are building the plane as we’re taking off, which can be very confusing for the passengers on that plane.”