Is Bluetooth the Panacea of COVID-19?

The world has changed due to COVID-19. It’s had a massive impact on individuals, families, businesses, and every sector of society. The extent of illness and death is devastating. Things that would never have been imagined to be allowed just last year are now becoming encased in policies, practices, and laws. Take digital contact tracing.

Historically contact tracing has been about asking infecting people to recount those they have been in close physical contact with to determine whether those people (and the people they have been in contact with) need to be tested and/or quarantined. It’s a process that is difficult and easily inaccurate. A typical example is tracking people who have shared a plane ride with an infected person.

More recently, there’s been plenty of proposals for contact-tracing Apps that build a memory of proximity contacts by virtue of two phones being in close proximity to each other. Apple and Google have announced they will be launching a comprehensive solution that includes application programming interfaces (APIs) and operating system-level technology to assist in enabling contact tracing. Given the urgent need, the plan is to implement this solution in two steps while maintaining strong protections around user privacy.

In May, both companies will release APIs that enable interoperability between Android…