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June 23, 2020 09:24 pm

America Is Reopening. Coronavirus Tracing Apps Aren't Ready.

Smartphone apps meant to track where people have traveled or whom they have been near are mostly buggy, little-used or not ready for major rollouts, raising concerns as restrictions lift and infections rise. From a report: Local officials in Teton County, Wyo., home to Yellowstone National Park and resort town Jackson Hole, want to prevent a new wave of coronavirus cases as the area reopens. They decided to lean on technology. The county signed up for a location-tracking app developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to help accelerate contact tracing, the process of notifying and isolating people who might have been exposed to the virus. But as tourists stream into Yellowstone -- rangers spotted license plates from 41 states the day it reopened in mid-May -- the app isn't ready. It can't accurately track location, it's missing key features and its developers have struggled to protect sensitive user data. U.S. states and counties are placing great faith in contact tracing, in tandem with aggressive testing, as they reopen their economies. Pressure has increased as coronavirus infections rise in many states, including Arizona, Texas and Florida. The quick spread of the coronavirus makes it hard for human contact tracers to keep up, so authorities are turning to smartphone technologies to help track where people have traveled or whom they have been near. What is emerging across the country so far, however, is a patchwork of buggy or little-used apps, made by partners ranging from startups on shoestring budgets to academics to consulting firms. Some are working with location-tracking firms that have been under fire from privacy advocates. None appears ready for a major rollout, even as more local governments ease restrictions. Utah signed a deal worth more than $6 million with a firm backed by the family of billionaire Nelson Peltz and other investors. Rhode Island hired Indian software company Infosys to build its app free. North Dakota's governor turned to an old friend who had built an app for a college football team in 2013. Apple and Alphabet's Google deployed technology that at least five U.S. states agreed to adopt, but integrating it into smartphone apps takes time and comes with significant trade-offs. Some local health departments aren't keen on privacy restrictions in the Apple-Google protocol that limit information they can collect. Others had already sunk money into Covid apps before the tech giants arrived on the scene.

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