How to remove iOS Update notification badge for COVID19 update?

You do realize the API was a joint effort between Apple and Google?

If you no longer wish to use Apple products, then you will also no longer want to use Google products as they have the same Api.

Which means there's no other phone you can use.

The API is there so the tracking apps can make use of it. If you don't have any tracking Apps that use it, then the API does nothing.

If there's a company that values user privacy, its Apple.

See here: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/current/static/contact-tracing/pdf/ExposureNotification-FAQv1.1.pdf

Access to the technology will be granted only to public health authorities. Their apps must meet specific criteria around privacy, security, and data control. The public health authority app will be able to access a list of beacons provided by users confirmed as positive for COVID-19 who have consented to sharing them. The system was also designed so that Apple and Google do not have access to information related to any specific individual.

Without an App, and without consent, nothing is shared with Authorities, and Apple nor Google get any of the information even when it is shared.

There are other similar APIs on both Android and iOS phones, did you complain about them? With this one Apple includes a switch for it and defaults it to off and you would have to download and install any app that was going to use it.

Then you probably shouldn’t use a smart phone at all.

If your region offers a tracing app then this update will allow you to use it. It’s opt in, meaning you decide if you want to install the app or any other apps that would use this software.

And you think that would save you from being tracked? Think again:

• Your carrier knows the location of your phone all the time, even if you turn off location services, because it can triangulate from the towers that receive your phone’s periodic “I’m here” ping. They are required by law to do this to support E911. They upload this information to databases where your location and whereabouts are known to law enforcement and any business that cares to know where you are.
• License plate scanners are ubiquitous, in police vehicles and repo trucks. And also along limited access highways, toll roads, bridges and tunnels. And every time your plate is scanned it goes into a location database.
• Electronic toll tags are obviously used every time you use a toll facility, but transponders are located everywhere along highways for traffic control. Have you see signs that display how long it will take to get to an upcoming milepost? Where do you think they get that information?
• Do you use public Wi-Fi, your cable provider’s hotspots or the “free” convenient Wi-Fi networks in malls and stores? Did you think that your location wasn’t tracked by those?
• See those cameras in stores, malls and other public places? Have you heard about facial recognition?
• Do you have a Transit Pass account?
• Do you use an urban bicycle rental like New York’s CitiBike? Have you noticed that your usage history shows the location and time you picked up the bike and likewise when you dropped it off?
• Do you use credit cards in stores? Did you know that the location where you use a card is recorded in a worldwide central database, ostensibly to detect card fraud through what’s called a “velocity check” (AKA as the “superman test”)?
• Have you heard of iBeacon? It’s a feature that tracks and reports the location of any device that has Bluetooth enabled on a device.

Apple is about the only business in the world that does NOT track you.

You can not remove the notification.

A tin foil hat would work better than at dumb phone. And don’t walk off the edge of the Earth while walking with your head down to avoid the scanning rays of aliens.

You’re welcome.