Promoting epidemic safety -- and 1984-style social control
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2020/04/29/most-americans-are-not-willing-able-use-app-tracking-coronavirus-infections/c1cyCZLivyiqTBvUvIAaIM/story.html
Though this story comes to us via the Boston Globe, it's actually from the Post -- and is based on a survey sponsored by the Post and the University of Maryland.
It seems Google and Apple, in great haste, are developing an app that will trace people carrying the covid19 virus and will notify app-users in their vicinity. Similar apps are already in operation in places like Australia and Singapore. (Not to mention the all-pervading Chinese system that tracks ALL citizens ALL the time; it long preceded concerns about the virus, but DOES demonstrate the dangers of such 1984-type social control.)
The Google/Apple system is intended to be administered by public health agencies, presumably state by state. Info about it is already being delivered to those agencies.
Tellingly, it was first referred to as a "contract-tracing tool" -- but "the companies more recently have begun referring to 'exposure notification apps' in order to shift focus from surveillance to the personal benefit."
The article oddly continues, "a member of the European Union's executive branch [sic!] went one step further, calling them 'de-confinement apps,' a term that stressed relieving movement restrictions [that is, lockdowns] imposed by governments worldwide as they try to slow the spread of the coronavirus..."
The Post/UM survey suggests the pandemic is weakening opposition to such intrusion into our privacy. The sampled population split 50/50 over whether they would participate. (The US system is voluntary; some others less so.)
Much would depend on how well protected the data amassed by the network would be -- there is ample concern about hackers and/or governments getting access to the supposedly anonymous data.
Though this story comes to us via the Boston Globe, it's actually from the Post -- and is based on a survey sponsored by the Post and the University of Maryland.
It seems Google and Apple, in great haste, are developing an app that will trace people carrying the covid19 virus and will notify app-users in their vicinity. Similar apps are already in operation in places like Australia and Singapore. (Not to mention the all-pervading Chinese system that tracks ALL citizens ALL the time; it long preceded concerns about the virus, but DOES demonstrate the dangers of such 1984-type social control.)
The Google/Apple system is intended to be administered by public health agencies, presumably state by state. Info about it is already being delivered to those agencies.
Tellingly, it was first referred to as a "contract-tracing tool" -- but "the companies more recently have begun referring to 'exposure notification apps' in order to shift focus from surveillance to the personal benefit."
The article oddly continues, "a member of the European Union's executive branch [sic!] went one step further, calling them 'de-confinement apps,' a term that stressed relieving movement restrictions [that is, lockdowns] imposed by governments worldwide as they try to slow the spread of the coronavirus..."
The Post/UM survey suggests the pandemic is weakening opposition to such intrusion into our privacy. The sampled population split 50/50 over whether they would participate. (The US system is voluntary; some others less so.)
Much would depend on how well protected the data amassed by the network would be -- there is ample concern about hackers and/or governments getting access to the supposedly anonymous data.