Germany, meanwhile, is going in the opposite direction. The country has ditched its centralized approach to COVID-19 tracking, based on Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT), in favor of a “decentralized architecture” that only stores contact data on devices. this more closely resembles the approach Apple and Google will take when their beta tracing tools arrive in the next few days. It’s not clear when Germany’s app will be ready.

Contact tracing apps like COVIDSafe could prove vital to ending lockdowns by making it easier to track the spread (and hopefully, decline) of the virus as public life resumes. Rather than shutting down most of society, officials could limit closures and stay-home orders to specific businesses and people. The challenge is getting enough adoption for the apps to be effective. Australia, for instance, wants at least 40 percent of the population to enlist. That’s a massive amount for any app, and privacy reassurances might be crucial for reaching that target.