By Tripp Mickle

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple Inc. and Google will together build software that would alert people if they were in contact with someone infected with the coronavirus, an unprecedented collaboration between two Silicon Valley giants and rivals.

The project is certain to raise privacy concerns but offers the most concrete technological solution to date for governmental authorities searching for ways to lift, at least partially, lockdown orders that have swept across the nation. The companies are by far the world's biggest smartphone software providers, with billions of users world-wide.

The companies said jointly Friday that the contact-tracing tools would be built into smartphones, using existing Bluetooth technology that tracks whether phones have passed within a certain distance of one another. The concept, used in some Asian countries earlier this year, could make it easier to contain future outbreaks as people return to daily life.

Apple and Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., said privacy and security would be central to the design. The companies said they would openly publish information about their work, making it available for researchers to analyze. The first versions of the software will be available next month.

"There has never been a more important moment to work together to solve one of the world's most pressing problems," the companies said in a joint statement.

Spokespeople for the companies didn't respond to requests for comment.

Write to Tripp Mickle at Tripp.Mickle@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 10, 2020 14:04 ET (18:04 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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