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San Francisco: Amid the growing debate over privacy and security around contact tracing technology, Apple and Google have announced new updates to allay such fears, saying the Bluetooth-driven exposure notification system to enable iOS and Android phones trace the spread of coronavirus is completely safe.

Cybersecurity researchers have questioned the contact tracing technology, saying tracing apps that allow attackers to access a user’s Bluetooth also allows them to fully read all Bluetooth communications.

Privacy concerns
Apple and Google representatives said that they are encrypting metadata associated with Bluetooth.

“By encrypting this data, we make it more difficult for someone to try and use it to identify a person (for example, by associating the transmit power with a particular model of phone),” the companies said in the updated document.

On April 10, Google and Apple announced a joint effort to enable the use of Bluetooth technology to help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of COVID-19 through contact tracing, with user privacy and security core to the design.

The tech giants said that the ‘Exposure Notification Bluetooth Specification’ does not use location for proximity detection. It strictly uses Bluetooth beaconing to detect proximity.

“A user’s Rolling Proximity Identifier changes on average every 15 minutes, and needs the ‘Temporary Exposure Key’ to be correlated to a contact. This reduces the risk of privacy loss from broadcasting them,” the document read.

Proximity identifiers obtained from other devices are processed exclusively on device and users decide whether to contribute to exposure notification.

“If diagnosed with COVID-19, users must provide their consent to share Diagnosis Keys with the server. Users have transparency into their participation in exposure notification,” the update added.

Technical changes
Among the technical changes proposed by Apple and Google to the system is that it can now share the strength and duration of a Bluetooth signal so that the apps can make a better judgment of who someone has been in contact with.

To provide even stronger privacy protections, Apple and Google made a slew of changes.

“We are updating the API so that keys will now be randomly generated rather than derived from a temporary tracing key”.

“When the app asks for exposure time, the time is recorded in five minute intervals, and we cap the maximum exposure time reported at 30 minutes,” the companies added.

Contact tracing is a technique used by public health authorities to measure and slow the spread of infectious diseases.

It requires gathering information from infected individuals about the people they’ve previously been in contact with. These people can then be notified by public health authorities to take appropriate safety measures, such as undertaking self-quarantine and getting tested.

This is how Apple-Google exposure notification works in the first phase.

Once enabled, users’ devices will regularly send out a beacon via Bluetooth that includes a privacy-preserving identifier — basically, a string of random numbers that aren’t tied to a user’s identity and change every 10-20 minutes for additional protection.

Other phones will be listening for these beacons and broadcasting theirs as well. When each phone receives another beacon, it will record and securely store that beacon on the device.

“At least once per day, the system will download a list of beacons that have been verified as belonging to people confirmed as positive for COVID-19 from the relevant public health authority,’ said the document.

Each device will check the list of beacons it has recorded against the list downloaded from the server. If there is a match between the beacons stored on the device and the positive diagnosis list, the user may be notified and advised on steps to take next.

In the second phase, available in the coming months, this capability will be introduced at the operating system level to help ensure broad adoption.

Both Apple and Google emphasized that this system does not collect location data from the device, and does not share the identities of other users to each other, Google or Apple.

Oakland, California: Stores and workplaces eager to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus are equipping existing security cameras with artificial intelligence software that can track compliance with health guidelines including social distancing and mask-wearing.

Several companies told Reuters the software will be crucial to staying open as concerns about COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, persist around the world. It will allow them to show not only workers and customers, but also insurers and regulators, that they are monitoring and enforcing safe practices.

The question becomes whether the tech remains after the public health problem goes away, and that is the real privacy fear.
– Al Gidari, a privacy expert at Stanford Law School
“The last thing we want is for the governor to shut all our projects down because no one is behaving,” said Jen Suerth, vice president at Chicago-based Pepper Construction, which introduced software from SmartVid.io this month to detect workers grouping at an Oracle Corp project in Deerfield, Illinois.

Samarth Diamond plans to deploy AI from Glimpse Analytics as soon as its polishing factory re-opens in Gujarat, India, while two Michigan shopping centers owned by RPT Realty will have distancing tracking from RE Insight in two weeks.

Buyers expect the technology will work because they already have used similar tools to profile shoppers entering stores and find helmet scofflaws on construction sites.

But some technology consultants that advise retailers and office landlords have cautioned clients against introducing new technology at a chaotic time and investing in tools that may be needed only for a period of months. Privacy activists concerned about increasingly detailed tracking of people also are urging businesses to limit use of the AI to the pandemic.

“The question becomes whether the tech remains after the public health problem goes away, and that is the real privacy fear,” said Al Gidari, a privacy expert at Stanford Law School.

“Video in the store today to ensure social distancing remains to identify shoplifters tomorrow.”

COMPUTER VISION

Reuters spoke with 16 video analytics companies, many of them startups with a few million dollars in annual revenue, that have added offerings because of the coronavirus. Their systems can be set to produce daily reports, which site managers can use to correct recurring problems and document compliance.

Most work on a branch of AI technology known as computer or machine vision in which algorithms are trained on image libraries to identify objects with confidence of 80% or higher.

Several customers said the technology, which can cost $1,000 or more annually to analyze data from a handful of off-the-shelf video cameras, is cheaper than dedicating staff to standing guard. It also can be safer, as some guards enforcing distancing have clashed with people protesting safety measures, they said.

Pepper Construction’s Suerth said its SmartVid system has not flagged crowding issues yet because staffing has been limited. But Suerth said that as more crews arrive, the company will look at trends to issue reminders at “tool box talks.” “It’s another set of eyes on the site,” Suerth said, adding that software is less prone to mistakes than people and the “accuracy we’re seeing is really high.” Samarth Diamond manager Parth Patel said he could adjust procedures when the software identifies spots where his 4,000 workers are clumping together in busy areas. People tagged as not having masks quickly would be offered one by a team reviewing camera feeds, Patel said.

“It will surely be helpful for the safety of employees and their comfort level, and it will be helpful to show it to authorities that we are adhering” to regulations, Patel said.

Patel said he has confidence in the algorithms after his family successfully used computer vision last year at supermarkets it owns to count female shoppers and decide where to stock a new line of dresses.

RPT Realty, which Chief Executive Brian Harper said had used camera software to count visitors over the past few months at two of the 49 open-air shopping centers it owns in the United States, is moving to assess tenants’ compliance with reduced occupancy regulations across five malls.

It also plans to help consumers decide when to shop by using technology from startup WaitTimes to analyze lines of people waiting to enter stores, a phenomenon that has become common during the pandemic as part of social distancing efforts.

Signage will inform shoppers of the anonymous counting, according to Harper.

“You can never have too much data at your hands,” Harper said.

But calculating whether people are six feet (1.8 meters) apart and detecting objects such as face masks are all novel uses now being tested and launched on accelerated schedules.

Some startups even promise to spot sneezing and coughing, claims that drew skepticism from some experts.

“Most solutions will be in uncharted territory, without a proven track record, and likely susceptible to false-positives and bugs,” said Vinay Goel, a former Google Maps product leader who is now chief digital products officer at the tech unit of real estate services giant Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.

Beside costs, businesses are concerned AI will trigger too many reports of non-problems, like a family walking close together in an aisle, retail consultants said.

Indyme, a technology vendor that works with BevMo!, Office Depot and other U.S. retailers, said that its clients have preferred rudimentary boxes that can count people at entrances and automatically announce, “For your safety, please maintain a social distance of six feet, thank you.”

San Francisco: The Coca-Cola Company on Monday announced a five-year agreement with Microsoft for an undisclosed sum to utilise the capabilities of Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365.

The solutions will help Coca-Cola gain new insights from data across the enterprise, enabling a 360-degree view of the business, and providing enhanced customer and employee experiences.

Coca-Cola “is taking its digital innovation a step further, leveraging Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365 and Azure to better connect people and opportunities through breakthrough productivity and powerful information management that will drive continued business success over the next decade,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president, Worldwide Commercial Business, Microsoft.

Once deployed, new Dynamics 365 AI-driven insights and real-time dashboards will allow call centre managers to monitor performance metrics for overall employee satisfaction scores and benefit from real-time insights into which call topics are driving scores.

These investments will also enable The Coca-Cola Company to access the latest innovations in the Dynamics 365 portfolio of applications and expanding capabilities, the companies said in a statement.

“This partnership with Microsoft allows us to really step change our employee experience through replacing previously disparate and fragmented systems. These platforms allow us to deliver relevant, personalised experiences as we network our organisation,” said Barry Simpson, senior vice president and chief information and integrated services officer of The Coca-Cola Company.

The Coca-Cola Company is also rolling out Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams worldwide, equipping employees with a single hub to connect and collaborate across chat, calling, meetings and documents.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Coca-Cola said it is leveraging Microsoft’s collaboration technologies to support the increased demand of a largely remote workforce.

Coca-Cola offers over 500 brands in more than 200 countries and territories.