Generally speaking the concept of these exposure notifications is great; but practically speaking it just doesn't work as intended, simply because even when available it requires too many steps to get to a critical mass of users (which must then also input enough good data).
As someone that has an interest in regions where people are persecuted/tracked I absolutely understand Apple and Google wanting to get the underlying technology just right; but we ended up with something that the local governments simply don't have the IT tactical teams to take advantage of. So it all got lost in muddled politics.
I still think that Apple and Google did right as things were/are now.
If this pandemic had made politicians full on crazy about opening up all platforms to easy tracking we could have ended up with an absolute disaster lasting decades afterwards; where in many regions opting out of tracking would have instantly made you treated as a criminal.
This is a very sensible summary.
Broadly speaking, Apple and Google made smart decisions in designing these APIs/utilities.
In retrospect, confusion could have been avoided if various local and national governments had embraced these solutions earlier, rather than making ill-fated attempts at their own 'in house' versions.
In retrospect, there were unrealistic expectations about how useful exposure notifications would be - I think it has become clear over time that they are a potentially useful secondary tool that has very little cost to human freedom, but not a decisive weapon against the virus.
I repeated 'in retrospect' because although some different, better decisions could have been taken, for the most part I think everyone was basically acting in good faith trying to solve a very complex biological, technical, social and legal problem at great speed. Should, God forbid, there ever be a need for a similar app again, a sound foundation has been laid.
That you haven't received a notification is no assurance you have not been exposed to the virus. The feature is useless.
I feel that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the app does and what it is supposed to do. It was never going to provide definitive information on your Covid status, positive or negative. It is simply one source of information amongst many. To receive a notification that you have likely been around someone who does have Covid is useful, actionable information. It's far from infallible and may well prove to be a false alarm, but it's useful guidance that you should probably get a test, and limit contact with others as much as possible until you know more.
Of course, it would be a more powerful if more people used it, but still, if even only a relatively small number of people discover that they are potentially exposed and act sensibly, that's better than nothing.
Few of our tools for tackling Covid are perfect - exposure notifications, lateral flows, PCRs, vaccines, masks, hand washing, etc. It's all just a tradeoff between preventing the spread of the virus whilst minimising disruption of our lives.
