Austria’s Stopp Corona app uses Bluetooth along with Apple and Google’s new API to help trace coronavirus contacts.
Austrian Red Cross
As countries around the world, as well as Apple and Google, release contact-tracing apps to help fight the coronavirus, MIT Technology Review has put together a list to help people track the apps.
The contact-tracing apps are designed to help people figure out if they have been near someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. Using Bluetooth, GPS and potentially APIs from Apple and Google, the apps have the potential to notify you through your smartphone if you’ve been near someone who has or had COVID-19.
Most of the 25 automated contact-tracing apps currently studied by the site allow you to voluntarily input whether you have tested positive, with the exception being India, which has made its Aarogya Setu app mandatory for millions.
In addition to listing out the apps and the countries in which they are available, MIT Technology Review also lists out helpful information such as the technology the apps are using, whether information submission is voluntary and if the data will be destroyed.
It also notes which apps are taking advantage of Apple and Google’s partnership.
The outlet notes that “the database isn’t a recommendation on whether to download an app or not.” Instead, the site says that “it’s intended to bring you data that helps you make an informed decision on whether to use a service, and on whether to seek changes in your government’s approach.”
A public Google Sheet with the apps will be updated daily at 3 p.m. PT, with MIT Technology Review asking users who want to submit an update, correction or addition to email [email protected].