RIVAL DESIGNS
The battle in Europe has centered on
competing systems for Bluetooth apps. One
German-led project, Pan-European Privacy-
Preserving Proximity Tracing, or PEPP-PT, which
received early backing from 130 researchers,
involves data uploaded to a central server.
However, some academics grew concerned
about the project’s risks and threw their
support behind a competing Swiss-led project,
Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity
Tracing, or DP3T.
Privacy advocates support a decentralized
system because anonymous data is kept only
on devices. Some governments are backing
the centralized model because it could provide
more data to aid decisionmaking, but nearly
600 scientists from more than two dozen
countries have signed an open letter warning
this could, “via mission creep, result in systems
which would allow unprecedented surveillance
of society at large.”
Apple and Google waded into the fray by
backing the decentralized approach as they
unveiled a joint effort to develop virus-fighting
digital tools. The tech giants are releasing a
software interface so public health agencies
can integrate their apps with iPhone and
Android operating systems, and plan to release
their own apps later.
The EU’s executive Commission warned that
a fragmented approach to tracing apps hurt
the fight against the virus and called for
coordination as it unveiled a digital “toolbox”
for member countries to build their apps with.