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How to Disable COVID-19 Exposure Notifications in iOS 13.5
MacRumors ^ | 4/29/2020 | Juli Clover

Posted on 05/21/2020 3:11:30 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants

Apple in iOS 13.5 is introducing an exposure notification API designed to allow apps created by public health authorities worldwide to notify people who come into contact with someone who has COVID-19 about their exposure to the virus.

Apple's Exposure Notification feature is privacy focused and shares no personally identifiable information or location data with the public health authorities creating the apps, but some users may want to opt out of the feature, which is enabled by default when upgrading to iOS 13.5.

Apple in the iOS 13.5 update added a toggle to disable COVID-19 Exposure Notifications for those who do not want to participate and do not want to be notified should they come into contact with someone who has COVID-19. Here's how to get to it:

Open the Settings app.
Scroll down and tap on Privacy.
Tap on Health.
Tap on COVID-19 Exposure Notifications.
Tap the toggle to turn the feature off.

The purpose of the exposure notification system is to limit the spread of COVID-19 as much as possible by informing people who have been exposed so they can self-isolate and get recommendations from their local health authorities. Because it works by allowing two smartphones to interface with one another using random identifier beacons and Bluetooth, it works best when most people have it turned on.

Re-enabling Exposure Notifications can be done by following the steps above and tapping the toggle to turn the feature back on. If the toggle is green, it's on, and if the toggle is gray, it's off.

iOS 13.5 is available in a beta capacity at the current time, and there won't be apps that take advantage of Exposure Notifications until the update is released. Receiving Exposure Notifications also requires downloading an app from a public health organization that uses the API and agreeing to its terms and conditions. Simply having the toggle turned on won't do anything without the app.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1984; bigbrother; contacttracing; leavemealone; masssurveillance; notracking; spying; unauthorized
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

I agree.

I called my nephew a few hours ago. As I set the phone down, I noticed a map with a red flag on. his address about 250 miles north of me....with his home address clearly noted.


41 posted on 05/21/2020 9:20:03 PM PDT by BunnySlippers (I Love Bull Markets!)
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To: Grandpa Drudge
Thanks for posting the link, Grandpa Drudge. Here’s the most cogent point of the article:

Cross-Platform App Communication

Apple and Google have both worked to create APIs for exposure notifications that work together so ‌iPhone‌ and Android smartphones can interface with one another and you'll receive notifications if exposure happens even if the person you've been in contact with has an Android smartphone.

Exposure Notification Opt-In

In the iOS 13.5 Exposure Notification is a privacy setting that is off by default, and using the feature requires users to download an app and consent to sign up for the exposure notification system.

If you do, at some point, get COVID-19, there's a separate consent process for anonymously alerting people that you've been in contact with. The app needs express consent to inform others of the diagnosis, and nothing happens automatically.

In other words, it is opt in at the users choice at every level, and also anonymously, using on-device generated cryptographic keys, that are only connected on the cloud. Permissions are also the user’s choice. It is OFF by default, and the API only becomes active when the user downloads an App, activates it voluntarily, that detects nearby persons with a similar App and exchanges keys. None of these data are shared with either Apple or Google.

42 posted on 05/21/2020 9:25:38 PM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplophobe bigot!)
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To: Grandpa Drudge
At the moment I believe the only thing accomplished so far is a dramatic (and unconstitutional) intrusion into our civil rights with this Contact Tracing sham.

The progressive Leftists are talking about injecting mandatory chips into every person on Earth as the ultimate answer to tracking. That’s most likely the endgame we are looking at.

43 posted on 05/21/2020 9:27:51 PM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplophobe bigot!)
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To: RBW in PA

I don’t go out much lately but when I do I leave my phone home.


44 posted on 05/21/2020 9:29:29 PM PDT by riri (If people still dropping, most aint shopping.)
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To: deks
Re: Big Brother Is Watching You!

Not completely yet. But that is the goal. The endgame. Big Brother WANTS to watch you, 24/7 and in intimate detail.

45 posted on 05/21/2020 9:30:36 PM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplophobe bigot!)
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To: nutmeg

bookmark


46 posted on 05/21/2020 9:33:14 PM PDT by nutmeg (Mega prayers for Rush Limbaugh)
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To: Swordmaker
Well, then I buy burner phones by the crate, then. When I bought this house, I told the tech I'd go with a DOCSIS 3 modem for voice and data, but, I had three-wire copper as a backup that I wanted turned on at the pole, and he looked at me like I just surprised him with a pop quiz he never studied for. "Like, you know, ANALOG wire?!?" This kid was so green, he still had sap running out his ass, so I gave up. We eventually gutted it down to our own modem, chucked all the ISP's gear, added a couple signal extenders, and have whole-house wifi and Internet television. Works great. I know the only way we could go completely off-grid is to live in a lean-to in the forest (even then, some self-important SOB would probably rat us out), but the less footprint, the better.

Sorry, kiddies, but this 20 year IT tech is here to tell you that technology did not set mankind free, because our wisdom to use it in that way is far outpaced by the technology that's at hand to be abused.

47 posted on 05/21/2020 9:47:22 PM PDT by Viking2002 (Why should I walk into the great unknown, when I can sit here, and throw my bones?)
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To: Secret Agent Man
Even if they don’t, who’s to say the apps’ creators dont have something in there that’s accessible to govt sources.

Just this past week a bunch of apps were pulled off platstore and apples store that no one knew about that were actually malware searching for useful info on peoples phones and tablets. Apps that have been out there for years.

Which apps were those on the Apple App Store? I just did a search for any such app malware on Apple and NOTHING came up since November 2019. Yeah, there was malware found in Google’s Play store, but what are you blithering about in the Apple Store that was pulled due to Apps having malware hiding in them. The 17 apps found back in November , and yes, some of them were long time existing apps, were related to in-App links being CHANGED after the fact to a malware site with a malicious script which then triggered an “ad-clicker” which swiftly visited multiple sites, logging multiple visits to generate revenue for the publisher. They’d gotten around the vetting by making the change after they’d been approved for inclusion in the App Store. The majority of these apps were published in non-American Apple App stores. That publisher was banned for life from ever placing an App on Apple again.

I went through several Apple sites and found nothing being reported. I’ve gone through five pages of Duck,Duck, Go pages of an “iOS malware” search and found nothing for anything since that discovery. Prior to that, there was one in 2018, and then a few in 2016, and then the Chinese Xcode Ghost malware in China which were done by jailbreaking iPhones and side loading App stores using Business App installation methods using direct loading via business iPhone management control methods.

So what are you blithering about in the last week?

48 posted on 05/21/2020 10:09:26 PM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplophobe bigot!)
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To: Secret Agent Man
It would be naive, given what does go on that is known, to simply,believe nothing will happen to this data or that no one collects it. Apple may not, but I would bet it is being collected by someone.

Yes, someone could collect and analyze it. But what are they getting? Not much. In actual fact, it might be a good thing for them to get more data about people’s exposure and actual contracture of this disease in real time. . . So long as the data is at arms length and completely anonymized, an ultimate blind study.

That’s what this data generates at the cloud level.

It’s anonymized at the individual device level with a cryptographic key so the owner can reconnect to the data to learn if one of the other cryptographically anonymized persons with which he has had close contact has reported developing COVID19. That’s an active connection to learn that fact, not a passive notification. That’s at both devices that inter-communicate. That data is then individually sent to the cloud.

The only data that could be tracked would be generic, statistical anonymous data, unconnected to any particular person. The purpose is for individuals to make decisions on their own to self-isolate based on accurate data of actual exposure.

49 posted on 05/21/2020 10:21:54 PM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplophobe bigot!)
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To: BunnySlippers
I called my nephew a few hours ago. As I set the phone down, I noticed a map with a red flag on. his address about 250 miles north of me....with his home address clearly noted.

If you have his address in your contacts, then Apple Maps knows where his house is. It shows in the address book.

50 posted on 05/21/2020 10:25:14 PM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplophobe bigot!)
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To: riri
I don’t go out much lately but when I do I leave my phone home.

That’s one solution, but what year model is your car? Most newer cars are fitted with GPS and tracking modules, now. WIFI too.

51 posted on 05/21/2020 10:28:10 PM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplophobe bigot!)
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To: Swordmaker

Hmmm...that’s what he guessed. Thanks.


52 posted on 05/21/2020 10:33:25 PM PDT by BunnySlippers (I Love Bull Markets!)
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To: Swordmaker

This is why I don’t regularly carry my devices. Just when I think I am going to need them. I am not the type to feel like I need to be glued to a phone 24/7.


53 posted on 05/22/2020 12:26:26 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (What profits a man if he gains the world but loses his soul?)
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To: Swordmaker

We have two android phones but I have to keep location services on due to mileage apps for hub’s biz and my rental properties. ARGH. I guess I could track it manually but seriously, with me having two full time jobs and hub’s loathing of paperwork...


54 posted on 05/22/2020 5:47:31 AM PDT by AbolishCSEU (Amount of "child" support paid is inversely proportionate to mother's actual parenting of children)
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To: Swordmaker

Thanks.


55 posted on 05/22/2020 6:44:11 AM PDT by avenir
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To: Swordmaker
In other words, it is opt in at the users choice at every level, and also anonymously, using on-device generated cryptographic keys, that are only connected on the cloud. Permissions are also the user’s choice. It is OFF by default, and the API only becomes active when the user downloads an App, activates it voluntarily, that detects nearby persons with a similar App and exchanges keys. None of these data are shared with either Apple or Google.

Want to bet it doesn't become mandatory? The Cloud is lousy with all sorts of back-doors and taps, ISP's and otherwise, government requested and sanctioned.

When the CHI-COMs at Billy Gates and Soros's command release the next engineered bio-weapon, watch the hammer fall....

56 posted on 05/22/2020 6:50:25 AM PDT by Dubh_Ghlase (Oh boy!)
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To: RBW in PA

I hear ya. Yes, a burner phone is a good idea. Mine is old enough to not update, so as long as it lasts I’ll be okay. You can keep the phone and get a burner too. That’s what I would do. Only because you may need it. You can have it off, or turn location services off. But the flip side is you are paying for the phone if not using it. It’s a double edge sword. I remember resisting back in the day of carrying a phone at all!


57 posted on 05/22/2020 7:45:15 AM PDT by b4its2late (A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

I just updated my phone this week and the Covid tracker is there, but defaulted to OFF. Compared to most tech companies, Apple is protective of their customer’s privacy which is why I only use IPhone. You can’t pay me enough to use a Google Android device.


58 posted on 05/22/2020 8:20:11 AM PDT by Data Miner
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To: Blood of Tyrants; Swordmaker

These iOS 13.5 settings only appear in the iPhone — no sign of them so far in iPadOS 23.5


59 posted on 05/23/2020 1:18:11 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: martin_fierro

13.5, that is


60 posted on 05/23/2020 1:18:48 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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