Telegraph title: Tech firms show how much power they have
Telegraph subtitle: Western governments are locked in disputes with Apple and Google over how to introduce contact tracing apps.
Author: James Titcomb
Date: 22 April 2020
“The world’s biggest tech companies are now so rich that they often invite comparisons with individual nations. Apple’s revenues eclipse most countries’ entire economic output; Amazon has more employees than Luxembourg has citizens.
In practical terms, of course, these comparisons are just that. Tech companies cannot set their own laws or wage war – at least not yet. But that does not mean they are not in power, and the pandemic is illustrating that perfectly.
This week, it emerged that France was at odds with the approach that Apple has taken to Bluetooth contact tracing, a technology that is seen as central to attempts to find our way out of the crisis.
Apple and Google, which dominate the smartphone market, have presented a privacy-first approach to Bluetooth contact tracing that will encrypt, anonymise and store data on a phone when it is available next month.
Meanwhile, France is planning to release its own contact tracing app that stores data on a central server. It has been blocked from doing so by Apple’s Bluetooth tech, which prohibits this sort of app. This has irritated French ministers, but Apple is refusing to budge.
France is not alone. The NHS has reportedly had disagreements with Apple and Google over the same thing. Here’s our piece on the trade-offs between privacy and practicality that governments are having to make.
But while the tech companies may have irked governments, their approach is here to stay. Apple and Google control the world’s smartphone software; which means they set the rules. There is much more chance of governments falling into line with Silicon Valley on contact tracing than vice versa.”
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Source: Telegraph Technology Intelligence email newsletter of 19 April 2020
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