Google’s sister company Verily recently launched a website that invites adults in northern California to answer questions about their recent health and travel that could help them to receive a free coronavirus test.
Reuters reports that Verily, a sister company to tech giant Google, recently launched a website that allows adults in northern California to answer questions about their health and recent travel events that could result in them receiving a free coronavirus test. President Donald Trump previously thanked Google on Friday for developing a website to help the public determine if they needed to take a coronavirus test. The media accused Trump of fake news over the tool, which Google later conclusively refuted.
“Google is partnering with the US Government in developing a nationwide website that includes information about COVID-19 symptoms, risk and testing information. (2/6)
— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) March 15, 2020
Verily is a health care technology firm and is one of many firms owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet. Verily stated that it worked with employees at Google to develop the new website. The website states that Verily is working “with the California governor’s office to direct high-risk individuals to newly-launched testing centers in San Mateo and Santa Clara” counties.
Individuals showing symptoms of the virus are urged to seek medical care rather than rely on Verily’s testing system, the firm stated. Verily did not respond to requests for comment on how many users had utilized the website in its first few hours. Verily stated that people’s survey responses would be kept in an encrypted Google database, access to this database is heavily restricted and monitored according to Verily.
Verily stated that the data would be shared with healthcare authorities but would never be “joined with your data stored in Google products without your explicit permission.” Verily also stated that user-submitted data would be used for research purposes only with permission but it may ask for that permission in the future. The company did face criticism for requiring users to log in with a Google account, which does open the door to data privacy concerns.
The coronavirus testing website by Verily can be found here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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