Technology

Contact-Tracing Apps Aren’t the Technology Panacea People Hoped

High hopes that technology would help supplement the traditional, labor-intensive approach to contact tracing have been dashed.

In France, less than 3% of the population has downloaded the contact-tracing app StopCovid.

Photographer: Xinhua/Gao Jing/Getty Images
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Bloomberg’s daily technology newsletter is chronicling the impact of Covid-19 on the global tech industry. Sign up here.

As Covid-19 spread, sending almost every country into some form of lockdown, governments began to wonder how best to keep track of the deadly virus. Contact-tracing apps seemed a sensible solution.