Репост из: COVID-19 Report
Lawmakers Warn Coronavirus Contact-Tracing is Ripe for Abusive Surveillance
It is a big promise from Silicon Valley to a nation looking for ways to be freed from home confinement: Smartphones could discreetly detect those who may have COVID-19 and nudge them to quarantine, blunting renewed outbreaks as Americans start to once again venture out.
But as tech firms lay the foundation for a potentially massive digital contact-tracing infrastructure, Washington is grappling with whether such technology can work without becoming a hulking, invasive surveillance system.
It is a vexing problem that could leave Americans exposed to another vast intrusion in their everyday lives by governments or big tech companies.
If a person tests positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, an app provided by their public health department would send an alert to all other users of the app with whom the infected person had contact over the previous two weeks. Identities would not be revealed, just the day of the contact, how long it lasted, and the strength of the Bluetooth signal.
Privacy experts voice two big fears:
Such a system would only be useful if it's widely used. It's unclear if tracing technology can be effective at all if the entire system is anonymous, voluntary and inhibits the creation of large surveillance databases. So once a system is launched, there will inevitably be pressure to require some people to use it.
And if the system is widely used — and especially if it's connected to a database — there will be a huge risk that data would live on well beyond the pandemic, giving governments and corporations easy access to information about people's movements and healthcare needs that eclipses what they now have.
https://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-warn-coronavirus-contact-tracing-110029995.html
🦠@COVID19report
It is a big promise from Silicon Valley to a nation looking for ways to be freed from home confinement: Smartphones could discreetly detect those who may have COVID-19 and nudge them to quarantine, blunting renewed outbreaks as Americans start to once again venture out.
But as tech firms lay the foundation for a potentially massive digital contact-tracing infrastructure, Washington is grappling with whether such technology can work without becoming a hulking, invasive surveillance system.
It is a vexing problem that could leave Americans exposed to another vast intrusion in their everyday lives by governments or big tech companies.
If a person tests positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, an app provided by their public health department would send an alert to all other users of the app with whom the infected person had contact over the previous two weeks. Identities would not be revealed, just the day of the contact, how long it lasted, and the strength of the Bluetooth signal.
Privacy experts voice two big fears:
Such a system would only be useful if it's widely used. It's unclear if tracing technology can be effective at all if the entire system is anonymous, voluntary and inhibits the creation of large surveillance databases. So once a system is launched, there will inevitably be pressure to require some people to use it.
And if the system is widely used — and especially if it's connected to a database — there will be a huge risk that data would live on well beyond the pandemic, giving governments and corporations easy access to information about people's movements and healthcare needs that eclipses what they now have.
https://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-warn-coronavirus-contact-tracing-110029995.html
🦠@COVID19report