On the privacy-conscientious use of mobile phone data (2018)

nature.com

18 pointsjohnny3134 comments

The trick to handling our data correctly is to first not collect it

Sure, that’s one point on the privacy-vs-utility spectrum. Is it the best one? Contact tracing to track the spread of coronavirus seems pretty high utility. If there’s a way to get a lot of that utility with a lot of (but not perfect) privacy, we should explore that, no?

Asking the user is ALWAYS possible before you tracks them.

History demonstrates the problem that governments can not be trusted to protect private data once they collect it and they can not be trusted to relinquish any power to monitor citizens once they have it.

A relevant chat on virus tracking apps: https://www.youtube.com/1hKwDdBQN04

Paraphrasing:

>In the case of a pandemic, any entity collecting private user tracking data, even if they distribute that data anonymously to alert a user that they have been in close contact with an infected person, can de-anonymise that data.

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