Tech giant Apple’s latest iOS update now includes a Covid-19 exposure notification tool that does not need you to download an app to access.
In a recent article released by Apple, the company announced that it has begun letting its iPhones carry out contact-tracing without the need for users to download an official Covid-19 app.
As an alternative, iPhone owners are being invited to opt-in to a scheme called Exposure Notifications Express.
This keeps a 14-day log of other phones detected via Bluetooth and serves an alert if one or more of their users are later diagnosed to have the virus.
The local public health authority will determine what the notification says. It might also tell the user to download a more fully functional app for further guidance.
However, it also gives officials the option of not developing an app of their own, in which case the user could be directed to go to a testing centre or to call a hotline for more information.
iPhone owners who become ill without having received a warning message can still cause a cascade of alerts to be sent to others. But since they will not have an app to start the process, this will be done by tapping on a text message sent by the public health authority to their smartphone after a positive diagnosis.
According to Apple, iOS continues to support dedicated Exposure Notifications apps, and a Public Health Authority (PHA) can offer Exposure Notifications apps and the app-less Exposure Notifications Express at the same time.
When a user enables Exposure Logging, iOS uses the PHA’s app if one is installed, and falls back to the app-less experience if no app is installed and the PHA supports Exposure Notifications Express.
To support Exposure Notifications Express, a PHA must deploy two different types of servers a test verification server and a key server.
Exposure Notifications Express works by communicating with the test verification server and the key server at specific times in a defined process.
However, since it depends on health chiefs providing the criteria for which alerts should be generated – including how close two people need to have been together and for how long – it will not function without their involvement.
Until officials decide whether or not to support the initiative, users are being prompted to download a local app if one exists as an alternative or being told “exposure notifications have not been turned on your public health authority”.
To date, more than 20 countries, provinces, and other geographical regions have released apps based on Apple and Google’s contact-tracing framework. They include Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Saudi Arabia among others.
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