Tracking, Tracing, Privacy and COVID-19

Even before today's big announcement from Apple and Google, it was clear that phone-based contact tracking was going to be an important weapon in the war against COVID-19. But might that weapon be a double-edged sword? In today's HIMSSCast, host Jonah Comstock is joined by the MobiHealthNews team — Managing Editor Laura Lovett and Associate Editor Dave Muoio, to discuss the various companies, researchers, and governments working on COVID-19 contact tracking and population mapping, and what privacy concerns that may entail.

Articles mentioned in this podcast:

Apple, Google have teamed up to build system-level COVID-19 contact tracing, interoperable APIs for iOS, Android

Chinese government releases public app to gauge potential coronavirus exposures

Bahrain launches electronic bracelets to keep track of active COVID-19 cases

Facebook rolls out three new COVID-19 related health tracking maps

Google mobilizes location tracking data to help public health experts monitor COVID-19 spread

US military going on deployment told to leave wearable trackers at home (from 2018)

MIT's COVID-19 app uses smartphones' Bluetooth to anonymously spot disease contacts