Toronto is gathering cellphone location data to find people congregating

Everybody loves to talk about government overreach, but if a total war (such as WW2) strikes Canada, the US, or any other freedom-loving country, they will round up millions of young people, give each of them a rifle, and tell them exactly what to do, where to sleep, what to eat, and a whole bunch of others, and eventually shove them into a transport ship and tell them to run into a trench and start shooting people. Penalty for desertion is death.

Somehow, all of this is constitutional, and these countries didn't descend into Orwellian hell after WW2. Context matters, and desperate times often require desperate measures.

I consider quoting 1984 as a very lazy form of argument, because it can be applied to everything the government does, regardless of context. It has no predictive power, and is no better than Godwin's law.

This is a situation where the often nebulous "good of society" is straight up in conflict with personal freedom.

I'm in favor of opt-in for something like using location data (info the government doesn't normally have because it is private companies with the info, at least in the US), but it won't work at all for limiting pandemic response, because someone that doesn't opt-in can spread the virus.

So even if everyone else opts-in and allows location usage (perhaps time-limited or whatever) to fight this pandemic, it just takes one infected person to opt-out and destroy containment efforts. Just like South Korea's patient 31.

I can't think of a general solution for this, for a case where full cooperation is needed. If it is crossing a very big red line to interfere with freedom of assembly in the midst of a pandemic, then one tool I can think of is to charge/prosecute people that take risks that cause harm to others. Not just a fine, rich people could effectively ignore restrictions. I mean serious charges, attempted murder or assault for every other person they infect.

You want to unlimited freedom, then take unlimited personal responsibility for the harm you cause.

The other solutions are to split hairs somewhat. The 1st Amendment only prohibits Congress, so delegate to the States to forbid assembly in pandemics. But, not being an attorney, I don't know if that legal strategy flies.

Another is language lawyering, the 1st Amendment specifically mentions "the right of the people peaceably to assemble". Obvious workaround is to consider an infected person not peaceful, they are after all, attacking everybody around them with trillions of microscopic invaders. You can gather only if you can prove you aren't infected.

Traffic has been monitored based on cellphone data for years. What’s Orwellian is outlawing gatherings and most people feel that’s a reasonable tradeoff in a pandemic.

If you’re complaining about something I would suggest non removable cellphone batteries and the ability to record location and conversations while the phone seems to be off.

For me, from a government system perspective, it depends wholly on whether or not a state of emergency has been declared. There are things that governments can do that they normally should not do. However, there are things that a government really should do in certain emergencies. Tracking individuals during a pandemic is one of those things. Curtailing the freedom to assemble is another one of those things. It should take an act of parliament (or the equivalent) and it should be temporary (with possible extensions).

Of course, the ironic this is that in 1984, "We have always been at war with Eurasia". That is the thing that legitimises the draconian measures. This is what Orwell warns about. However, I think it is important to understand that there is a big difference between creating an excuse for extrordinary measures and actually dealing with an emergency. It is critically important that we allow the latter while resisting the former. The difficulty is that this kind of action requires a nuanced response and large numbers of people put together often have difficulty with nuance.

P.S. I'm talking in general and not commenting directly on the fine article.

> This is a precursor to some straight-up Orwellian evil.

Not sure how someone who cares about this stuff isn't already aware by now (judging from the surprised tone of your post), but Canada has been investigating, harassing, and interrogating people for some time now, for doing things like writing books that criticize Trudeau. Look into Ezra Levant.

Isn't it how the world runs since maybe a decade now? Google and Facebook, American companies, know pretty much everything about everyone. It has been revealed that these companies are being tapped by three-letter agencies and it was revealed that rough employees leaked data about their users to other governments. Private data has been sold and stolen too.

Maybe, the way to go is not as simple as protesting against openly using this data for a fight on a pandemic.

I don't advocate that it should be the way it is now, I simply don't like pretending that something is happening NOW. It has happened long time ago.

There's already a way to break up groups of people and send them home. College towns have known how to do this for decades: Send one or two officers over and break up the party. We don't need high-tech mass surveillance for this.

We don't see this happening yet in the US or Candada because their governments want to look like they're doing something, holding news conferences and nicely asking people to pretty please stay home, but the governments don't want to actually do anything (enforcement).

I keep reading people talking about "freedom of assembly" and "freedom of movement" in the context of covid quarantines. Freedom of assembly isn't about you meeting your friends for a beer at the park, and freedom of movement isn't about being able to leave your house and go to the pub.

Freedom of assembly is about your right to assemble with other people protest publicly. None of these "freedom of x" are absolute.

> Anyone who believes for a moment that the information they collect can't be deanonymized is deluding themselves. This is a precursor to some straight-up Orwellian evil.

What are you visualizing? I get it we need to ensure our privacy and that in these times we lost civil liberties that never again reappear, but I'm wondering what you're thinking with "some straight-up Orwellian evil".

No one is forcing you to carry a cellphone, and a cellphone really isn’t an inalienable right. There’s a pretty easy solution to this problem if you don’t want to tracked. I’m not in support of what they are doing, but its a bit different than if it were being done with a government mandated biochip or ankle monitor rather than with a phone you voluntarily carry

I doubt the information is really anonymized in the first place. Making it really anonymous requires will, skill, incentive, hierarchical validation and resources. Not doing it on the other hand, is the path of least resistance. Plus the last 2 decades have proven you can not only get away with it, but people calling you on it have a high chance of paying the price for it.

I’m concerned this isn’t being done through the proper legal channels. The emergency powers act would allow the suspension of civil liberties and permit this.

However short of that a mayor shouldn’t have this power.

Is the issue here that someone has the ability to do this? You know People give up information willingly to Facebook right? And Cell service companies have the ability to do this for likely decades. At the very least they've known which tower you connect to.

tbh, I doubt the Government, in this situation, cares who you are. The issue is that groups will spread disease, keep the economy slow and overburden the healthcare system. They don't need your name! They're probably going to the cell service providers and saying 'yo, give me the lat long of group of 10 or more clustered in a 6 meter radius'. Maybe they're asking for names but it's not like they need them.

I could care less about your right to 'congregate' if you are putting my life at risk by doing so.

The reason this is not 'Orwellian' as you suggest, is because there's a very real and legit threat right now.

For god's sake, we're confined to our homes - that alone should be shocking enough.

If the Ontario Gov. is watching people 'congregate' during regular times, for whatever reason, then this is bad.

If they are using said powers to try to extend government reach so they can do nasty things after the threat ha passed, then this is bad.

But I doubt both.

The action is in the range of proportional and responsible, though I doubt it's having any effect.

The next step is that they will require you to have a tracker app on your phone - or an ankle bracelet - merely because you've identified as having COVID-19. Again - scary but legit and proportional, given the situation.

It's in these times we come pretty face to face with the results of individual actions with the community.

Instead of thinking in classical liberal terms, or even staunch collectivism, just consider what's the appropriate action for people and governments to take, within the context. It's not that hard to consider, and from this more communitarian perspective, our governments are mostly doing the right thing.

I think you have to accept that your parents are going to die one day, whether we contain COVID-19 or not. But you and your (future?) kids are going to have to live with the political consequences of this crisis for many years to come.

All of your civil liberties? Really? That seems to be a very high price to pay given we all die someday.

I'd rather live in a world of risks than one without liberty.

My mother is older and has chronic health issues. We both rather risk it and have choice in how we live our lives while we are still here.

Don't worry, your parents will live forever. Trudeu will take care of that. Don't mind the life they/we gonna live. More is better, right? Imagine if the government could put us in some little cages, feed us and keep us away from any harm we or others could inflict upon us. Everything would be safe and we would enjoy a long life! Our purpose in life is to live as long as we can. No brainer!

I'm sure you are exaggerating somewhat. Like, you probably wouldn't permanently give up your freedom of movement or the vote to stave off your parents' deaths two days or whatever. There are tradeoffs to be made here, and a temporary reduction in privacy might be worth it for the lives that could be saved. I personally think so. Probably most of the population agrees. The people on this site skew privacy-oriented, so you'll probably get less agreement here than in the population writ large.

I get your point. But does that mean others should give up their civil liberties? Or others should be locked up like prisoners?

Nobody has a right to live forever!

> I'd pretty much give up all my civil liberties

Okay, but you have not right to do the same to other people's civil liberties.

Thanks for being honest. Many here are in denial or are at best just fair weather liberals.

This being said, we are at the beginning of this, so it's more likely to be a temporary state and that things will return to normal than we enter a state of always being at war against covid19.

But this event will make many people wonder about what people will do if you convince them enough. The thing doesn't need to be true or not, just that people only need to believe you to do horrible things. That is the warning of history.

Only because they capture a lot of data and keep the row level information.

If you just grabbed clustered coordinates without any device information there wouldn't be enough data to be able to reconstruct identity information.

Yeah the obvious comparison to point to is that the US patriot act massively expanded the powers of the US intelligence agencies in response to 9/11, and now, despite the threat being nothing like what it used to be the intelligence services have just steadily pushed that power further and further.

People might accuse you of using a Slippery Slope fallacy, but in reality they're just establishing a precedent. And the justification will get weaker each time.

Using cell phone location data to track users isn't at all new in North America & Europe. Adtech companies have been doing since the 2000s.

Having worked at a digital signage company I can tell you that all digital out of home advertising companies use cell phone tower location data to calculate impressions (views) for their billboards. Note this isn't limited to digital outdoor ads, static (posters) ads also use the same location data to determine the amount of impressions they get.

This metric is usually required so that the Advertising companies can bill their customers.

It amazes me that so many HN commenters think this type of tracking is new. What you people should be concerned about are the adtech companies that have been doing this with little oversight for at least a decade.

These laws have been violated by DOOH companies for the past decade. Yet no one really talks about the private sector tracking people without consent.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22685912 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-home_advertising

Yeah Tory denied it on live TV as well.

Some things to be aware of are that Tory was the CEO of Rogers previously. Maybe he knew which data they have available and since it was a company owned by a family friend he could get whatever he wants.

Michael Bryant while allegeldy drunk rammed a bicycle off the road on purpose (self-defense) and killed the guy. His wife was in the car as well and they got separated a few months later. He was also the previous Attorney General in Ontario.

The logic.co first reported this afaik and now reporting details of the"walk back".

(What a strange term for admitting a lie.)

If you allow a precedent to be set it can be very difficult to get the genie back in the bottle...