Google may have installed COVID contact tracing app without permission and people are angry غاضب

As an unfathomably large and powerful international company, it makes sense that people in general would be wary of Google, just as space truck drivers would be wary if their boss told them to land on an alien planet and look for unknown signs of life. Some Massachusetts residents are now feeling this way after noticing that the state’s official COVID tracker app has been installed on their phones, ostensibly without any warning or permission.

The allegations come in the form of user reviews in Exposure notification settings function – MA . Application Application There is always 1 star left on the Play Store. Ycombinator posted the story So. While many of the reviews follow the charge of the kind of conspiracy theories that have become a mainstay for every topic close to the coronavirus, users who complain about downloading third-party apps to their devices without permission certainly have a legitimate complaint. As the saying goes, if they can do it for a good reason, they can do it for a bad reason.

to me Google support documentsAn indispensable COVID tracking app It is downloaded manually, after which the user must manually log in again to connect to the tracking notifications. A secondary method is to manually enable exposure notifications in the Google app itself and then automatically download the app for your region (or apps for regions you’ve traveled through). The apps are not available in all countries or states.

But some users reported that in addition to manually installing the Massachusetts contact tracing app, they also disabled the exposure notifications option in the Google app. In this case, it is not clear how to install an app in the background, presumably chosen for users that Google has determined to be currently or previously in Massachusetts. Other users who opted in to the system through the Google app found that the relevant status apps were automatically installed, the expected and desired behavior.

At least one member of the Android Police team has seen similar issues while driving from California to Arizona with the Google report option manually turned off, but has been found Arizona contact tracing app installed anyway. So this case can go beyond Massachusetts.

It seemed more like a case of incompetence than a transgression or wrongdoing by Senior Brother, Hanlun’s well-functioning old sword. But frankly, people have a right to be angry no matter what the problem is. We’ve reached out to Google for comment and will update this story if we hear back from the company.