Contact Tracing - and Privacy - Should we go there ??

Governments across the country are taking a look at how to monitor outbreaks of coronavirus and how to get their society reopened before irreparable damage is done. Many of these are beginning to lean on covid tracing apps for the smartphone in order to help to stop or at least slow the pandemic.  

While they are offering a lot of trust to these apps, others are questioning how far they should let them dig into their life and how much of a problem is it going to cause? Are we trading off our rights and privacy for the public health? 

Tina White, a Stanford University researcher, introduced an approach to protect the privacy of people in February of this year when the pandemic was just getting started. “Governments and public health want to be able to track people” she commented but also added that while it is necessary to minimize the spread of COVID-19, people are going to be a lot less likely to download any voluntary app if it intrudes in their private life.  

Conversely, how can an app designed to track and trace who you have come into contact with not violate some measure of privacy? 

Containment of the virus boils down to being able to identify the people who tested positive, track down people that they had contact with and notify them to self quarantine. 

 The Denver Post says it best by the comment  

" Smartphone apps could speed up that process by collecting data about your movements and alerting you if you’ve spent time near a confirmed coronavirus carrier. The more detailed that data, the more it could help regional governments identify and contain emerging disease hot spots. But data collected by governments can also be abused by governments — or their private-sector partners." 

Australia has approximately 3 million people who have downloaded such an app.In the United States, Utah is using much the same method, using an app that was originally designed to help younger people find friends to hang out with. Both applications will record the digital trail but the one in Utah compromises privacy even more by using the location to track what restaurants or stores a user may have visited. 

How long before this kind of application will be breached and used to commit crimes or stalk someone? 

One application that is under dev by Google and Apple says that it will limit the information that is taking in and anonymize what it brings in so that personal tracking is not possible. It must be noted however that Google has at times served its own interests and we have only their word that this application will behave in this way. 

In surveys of random users, most people state that they would not be comfortable with using an application that had not been proven to be secure and anonymous. 

Another problem that exists and interferes with the use of covid 19 tracking apps is that many people, particularly those in low income and vulnerable populations do not use smart phones and don't have access to them. Sadly, this is also the population that is most vulnerable to the coronavirus. That makes it difficult to use an app to track the virus in the population most likely to get it. 

What’s your take on a COVID 19 tracking application? 

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