Every day on the news you hear about a new way to either treat, test, or track COVID-19. Through all of the media missinformation that has been coming out lately, one idea has stayed prevalient and is being repeated all over the world. This is the idea of people downloading an app on their phone and being able to track if they have been in contact with someone who has had the virus. These tracking apps are being developed by the biggest tech companies in the world. The main two creators being Apple and Google. The people are worried about these apps though becuase this combines almost a social interaction with people’s health informaiton. There are many pros and cons to these kinds of apps. Two major pros would be that this would ideally slow the spread of the virus even more and it would limit your exposure to people that could possibly be infected. Two major cons to these apps would be that you are putting your health infromaiton out for others to see and that there is always the possiblity of that informaiton to be stolen once it is digitized.
The main question I want to ask the blog is, do people feel these apps are safe enough to use or are they a breach of personal privacy?
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/26/21237598/australia-coronavirus-contact-tracing-privacy
Yes, I feel like this is a good idea and should be considered safe to use. To an extent could they considered breaches of privacy, sure. Although in times of crisis or trouble, people generally are more willing to give up rights in order for better security and comfort, and that is the foundation governments are usually founded on. What difference does it make when we give up a little bit of privacy when these apps could potentially lift us out of this crisis. On top of that apple and google have pledged to terminate these tracking apps once the crisis is over, so that should make us feel more comfortable in their use
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-and-google-say-they-will-shut-down-covid-19-tracking-tools-once-pandemic-ends/
The concept of an app that tracks the health data of people with or without COVIC-19 is flawed for a few reasons. I think the biggest issue with this potential app is a false sense of security provided by the app data. If this potential app is not mandatory for downloading, there are many people who will not use it. They would feel that their data may be used against them or sold to advertisers. Another problem is that many people that have the virus are asymptomatic. If their health data was determining if they had the virus, then it would show that they are “safe,” which would lead to the spread of the virus even more. Where I live, around 10% of confirmed cases have died, which does not line up with the 2% death rate. This is very likely due to the number of unconfirmed cases that hospitals have not tested because those people are not showing symptoms. I see a coronavirus tracking app as very problematic and it will only create more problems than it will solve.
https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/sundays-covid-19-updates-48-305-positive-cases-in-pa-lancaster-county-death-toll-reaches/article_51389ad6-8d36-11ea-9609-5bc01ed88a47.html
This is a very interesting idea, and would prove to be very beneficial in helping stop the spread of Covid-19. However, one major issue of this idea can be concerned with privacy issues. Will people like knowing that their health is being monitored by major tech companies who all access to all of their information. What if a glitch occurs in the system that starts showing healthy people as being infected with the disease. Or a hacker gains access to the system and is able to somehow wreck havoc on trying to control the disease. I read an article by the Washington Post that says that the major tech companies could also sell the data that it is collecting on who is infected or not
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/17/white-house-location-data-coronavirus/
I think these apps are interesting as its a method to track the spread of the virus so that you know if you may have come into contact with it or where to stay away from. I am concerned about the privacy of those affected though, and great measures should be taken to protect them. It does show another interesting things about humanity, however, in that governments have historically been propagated from the sacrifice of liberty in order for the citizens to have security. You can see with the massive amount of app downloads for these trackers that this is still true, people are willingly giving up liberties in order to feel more secure. The anonymous data regarding how groups move is a great idea, but I still believe that great measures should be taken to ensure that the data is used for the good of the society, and not other means.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/04/25/norway-14-million-people-download-coronavirus-tracking-app-despite-security-concerns/#1c61ef047832
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/04/25/norway-14-million-people-download-coronavirus-tracking-app-despite-security-concerns/#1c61ef047832