Verily, the sister company of Google has come up with a screening site for individuals to get tested for the novel coronavirus. But, the problem is that the site presently is only available to the people of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Before launching the website, Verily mentioned that they are trying to come up with a tool for helping the triage people for coronavirus testing. The website is still being developed, and its initial launch would be in the Bay Area. The company plans to expand it more over time and expects the support of the industry partners and the government officials in doing so. The spokespersons for the company also thanked the engineers of Google for volunteering to take part in this initiative.
For using this screener, a person has to be of at least 18 years of age, a US citizen, with the ability to speak and understand English. After creating an account and signing the authorization form, the user will be informed by Verily about the personal information about to be collected from them. This information would include name, phone number, address, email ID, and a couple of health information that is allowed to be used by the government for health checkups.
Verily added that the information they collected would be offered to a few service providers that provide services on behalf of the company. Google is also one of those companies included in that list that Verily relies on for web hosting, data storage, security services, cloud services, and other important support functions.
The website made by Verily also assures the users that their information will not get linked to their Google accounts or shared with any insurance company. However, the user needs to have their Google account for using the screener.