Due to the global pandemic, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) decided to enable contract tracking on Bluetooth low-energy devices such as wearables, and now, Google appears to be preparing its operating system for the feature.
XDA Developers Encoding detected within Play Services beta 20.50.14 that reveals Google’s intention to add COVID-19 exposure notifications to its platform. The chain reads: “Your phone will use this device to securely collect and share random IDs with other nearby devices. You can be notified if you have been around someone who reported having COVID-19. The date, duration, and signal strength associated with an exposure will be shared with the app. “
This would mean that your portable device’s Bluetooth will be able to use the contact tracing system, which means that you can leave your phone at home when you go out. The feature could also use both your smartphone and wearable device to make the tracking even more accurate, according to the leak.
The Bluetooth SIG only released a draft of the Portable Exposure Notification Service specification last month. Therefore, it is worth noting that this feature may take a while as the Bluetooth SIG standard has yet to be finalized. However, once that happens, it looks like Google will be ready for a quick launch.
Source: XDA Developers