Editor's Note: The above video is from Sept.8, 2020.
It's no secret our smartphones are tracking us. Whether that tracking comes in the form of a Google Maps GPS system or eerily-specific social media advertisements, our digital footprints are easy to create and difficult to keep track of.
While many aren't perturbed over the largely unknown ways they are monitored and followed online, the coronavirus pandemic ushered in a new era in which a lot of people feel comfortable and even opt into being monitored and followed, at least for confidential public health reasons.
Contact tracing is the process of identifying people who have been diagnosed with an infectious disease and the people they have come into contact with. As COVID-19 cases rose at the beginning of 2020, so did the ubiquitous practice of contact tracing in efforts to contain the virus.
Local or statewide public health departments can handle contact tracing for their own constituents. For example, the Pennsylvania Department of Health has been contact tracing for COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. The DOH is also why you may have received a smartphone alert that you were exposed to COVID-19.
Pennsylvania's statewide health department launched the COVID Alert PA app in September of 2020. According to the DOH, it uses Bluetooth Low Energy technology (BLE) and the Exposure Notification System developed by Apple and Google to track coronavirus cases and exposures. If you downloaded the app and consented to using this technology, your phone can tell you if you have come into contact with someone else who uses the app and was diagnosed with COVID-19.
According to the DOH, Apple and Google, exposure notification programs like COVID Alert PA do not compromise personal security. Google's guide to smartphone contact tracing notes, "The Exposure Notifications System does not collect or use the location from your device. It uses Bluetooth, which can be used to detect if two devices are near each other — without revealing where the devices are." The guide continues to say your public health department is also not allowed to track any phone's location.
However, some states do not have contact tracing apps like Pennsylvania. In this case, exposure notification systems can be downloaded directly into smartphone settings. If a region supports these built-in programs, residents do not need to download an app but can participate in BLE tracking. Still, they must opt into this technology for it to actually monitor nearby COVID-19 activity.
So, if you keep receiving pesky pop-ups on your phone that say "Exposure Notifications Available," that means you live in a place that uses the contact tracing technology either through an app or phone settings. Although you did not sign up for those availability alerts, you will only receive a notification saying you have been exposed to COVID-19 if you explicitly opted into bluetooth tracking.
Still, smartphone and coronavirus-related security is still a touchy subject in Pennsylvania. Commonwealth health officials came under fire in April of 2021 when a massive contact tracing data breach compromised the personal health information of 72,000 people in the state. However, the DOH terminated its contract with the company responsible for the breach, and it said the COVID Alert PA app was not impacted by the incident.
If you want to sign up for smartphone contact tracing, you can do so by following the steps under the "Exposure Notifications" tab in your iPhone settings. For Android users, open your phone settings and click "Google," then "COVID-19 Exposure Notifications." Either way will connect you to a regional contact tracing service or an official public health department app.