, Columnist
The Covid-19 Tracking App Won’t Work
It does nothing for the people who are most at risk.
Track this.
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Apple and Google have generated much hope and controversy with their plan to create a Covid-19 tracking app. Too bad it won’t work.
Public debate has focused on how to balance the right to privacy with the potential to save lives. There’s ample reason for skepticism -- for example, “anonymous” Bluetooth tracking can be deanonymized. But that’s not what I care about. What concerns me is that the whole concept of a tradeoff is false from the start, because no app can fix the thoroughly inequitable U.S. health care system.