Psa Ios 14 Public Beta Disables Contact Tracing Apps In Europe

If you’re still weighing up the pros and cons of installing the iOS 14 public beta, it’s worth noting that it disables coronavirus contact tracing apps in Europe if they use the Apple API …

Apple lists this as a ‘known issue’ with the beta.

Once you have the beta installed, going into Settings > Privacy > Health will show that COVID-19 Exposure Logging is off. If you try to turn it back on, a message says that the feature is ‘Not available in your region.’

It’s particularly important to point out as there is no alert to this unless you check your contact tracing app. The Irish app, for example, has a warning symbol on the Contact Tracing tab, and if you tap that it tells you that the feature is not active and you should enable it in settings. You cannot, however, do that in the current public beta.

Most European countries have adopted or are in the process of adopting the joint Apple/Google contact tracing API, which means that most European apps do not currently work with the beta.

Thanks, Benjamin