Big tech companies are working on apps to help track the spread of the coronavirus, but a new poll finds that there may be some hurdles to it being successful in the United States.
A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released on Wednesday found that among Americans who have a smartphone, those polled were split evenly on whether they would use an app developed by Apple and Google to trace the coronavirus spread.
The app from the two tech giants would be opt-in and use anonymized data to tell users whether they have come in contact with people who have tested positive for coronavirus.
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The poll shows that one factor for that split might be trust in those companies among the public. Of those polled, a net of 56 percent said they did not trust Apple and Google to keep information like a positive diagnosis private.
However, another barrier to the Apple/Google app being successful may also be that nearly 1 in 6 Americans do not have a smartphone—which would be necessary to download the app, as the Washington Post notes.
The app would work by using Bluetooth, with people who have tested positive notifying the app, which would send a signal to people they come in contact with.
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