A historic alliance

10 April, Apple and Google are getting into the fight against coronavirus.

The two American giants will offer a common platform so that potential government applications can work without any problem on all smartphones on the market.

For two weeks their engineers have been working on a common platform, in order to set up tracing on iOS as on Android, which equip almost all the mobiles in circulation in the world.

Tracing consists in following the different contacts of each smartphone user, in order to prevent a possible risk of contamination. Concretely, it involves using the Bluetooth function of the device, capable of detecting a machine (equipped with the application) a few meters away, then saving it in memory. If a user has coronavirus, they can then notify the application. The latter then sends an alert to all users who have been near him and therefore risked contaminating him in the last 14 days.

The application will inform people who have been in physical contact with the person suffering from the corona virus who declared on the application that it is contaminated. Unlike some false information, this application does not aim to geolocate you but only to inform you whether or not you have been in contact with someone who has contracted the virus recently.

Moreover, all data collected is completely anonymous and no names will be disclosed.

After this joint initiative, the ball is now in the court of the French government. He will then have to choose to go through the platform designed by Apple and Google, or to choose another solution.

According to a study by Odoxa, 62% of French people say they are ready to use a tracing application to fight against the coronavirus.