Google Responds to Claims It Secretly Installed COVID-19 Tracking App on Users’ Phones

Google's Chrome browser in an undated photograph. Andrew Matthews/PA

A number of Android phone users over the past weekend reported that a COVID-19 notifications system was automatically installed on their phones without warning or consent.

Google, in a statement to several news outlets, did not confirm or deny whether the “automatically distributed” system was installed without users’ consent, while noting that “COVID-19 Exposure Notifications are enabled only if a user proactively turns it on.”