Digital surveillance technologies to fight pandemic must respect human rights
ccc.de
ccc.de
At present it is due the pandemic, next it will target some set of people because they are undesirable - because you know, that would supposedly make us safe. We know how that ended the last time. Whether it is contact tracing or wearing an arm band, underneath it is the same thing.
When an individual is compelled, for the perceived safety of the majority, it leads to slavery. It also destroys the majority. And technology accelerates this process.
Having seen rights being eroded, trampled, mocked, I have realized that we do not have any effective rights. They are a privilege bestowed by those in power.
This virus is just an excuse to accelerate the release of technology and laws that have slowly been trickling out over the last few decades, the last little push as it were.
It's mostly up to people now, whether they decide to listen and be compelled to give up nearly every freedom and right they have in the name of 'safety', or they push back against it.
We are always having to adjudicate the boundaries of rights... that is why we have a court system. Where those boundaries are IS up to date, and has changed over time... this is unavoidable, because there is no 'natural' place to put those boundaries.
Questionable. Who says you have those rights? The government. They can take them away at any time. Just look at the USA PATRIOT Act.
Yeah, but he enacts the will of the majority ;)
I totally get & agree with the sentiment, but not in the absolutist form. It's always going to be fuzzy, the question is mostly how we weigh the needs of the many and the needs of the few (or the individual). I do believe that the average response to that is strongly reflected in each nation's laws & culture, with the US emphasizing the individual's needs a lot more.
I think this is a perspective encouraged by those in power. I think that a slightly different, but truer analysis is that our rights are always there, but often violated.
Now, I feel that the exceptions have become the norm and with each passing event, are creeping in every aspect of our lives. Turning it around - Our rights are always violated, we sometimes get to exercise them.
The very notion that you have something means that it can be taken away, unless like you said, you have the means to defend it. Contrast that with something you are, not have. That can only change, not taken away.
That sounds like 18th-century thinking. In that era, "natural rights" seemed a reasonable notion because people could agree on the existence of a higher authority (even if it was a pretty aloof Deist-type God) that bestowed those rights inalienably on each and every person. But that idea has become increasingly discredited, and in the 19th century other schools arose with their positions that "rights" are merely an invention of human societies for the purposes of those societies.
However, without a shared higher moral authority, I can claim whatever rights I want and you can't tell me otherwise. All you can do is forcibly remove my ability to freely exercise them, and all I can do is forcibly defend my ability to enjoy them. Hence the existence of the USA's second amendment.
The pendulum has swung too far the other way.
But there are a lot of knee-jerk "but muh liberties" reactions in this thread and I think this is very dangerous, as it fails to see that sometimes individual rights must be weighed against each other.
My personal issue is the companies with ubiquitous presence to implement these changes (Apple & Google) has to negotiate US political environment. One on hand, having a near global solution seems preferable to fractured regional systems specially if we expect to resume global travel in the future. On the other hand, this is more global surveillance information at the hands of US government which... I'm sure they're eager to collect.
My current position is I can't see covid19 or any similarly infectious disease being contained without mass contact tracing / global medical monitoring technology, it's an emergent reality when globalized society confronts pandemics. The only things preventing this system prior was an absence of technology, so in some sense we are almost fortunate the outbreak is happening with our current capabilities. If covid19 happened instead of SARS 20 years ago, there wouldn't even be the technology to rapidly map the genome, roll out tests, or contact trace the way east Asian countries are doing to mitigate spread. This is the first time in human history where we have the opportunity deal with ongoing serious pandemic and perhaps implement resilient technical systems to prevent for future events without catastrophic social disruption. Covid19 is not going to be the last pandemic we see, billions of people in Asia and Africa are being uplifted through industrialization which means more opportunities for zoonotic diseases in the future.
I don't believe mass contact tracing is essential to contain this pandemic. It is a trojan.
>> If covid19 happened instead of SARS 20 years ago, there wouldn't even be the technology ....
Again, just because we have the technology, it gets used, irrespective of whether is needed or useful.It is hilarious that we don't have technology/will to provide PPE for healthcare workers, masks for everyone but hey we can easily track everyone in the world. Talk about perverse optimizations.
And what is more, now, people are welcoming it !!
Although it's noteworthy that data protection is also much stronger in Europe than in the US.
As this article correctly points out, we should be very concerned about contact tracing, and any contact tracing program needs to have broad privacy and legal protections built into it. What this article does not say is that there should never be any contact tracing for any reason because it has the potential to be abused which automatically outweighs any benefit to public good. Similarly, our stay at home orders should have termination dates based on transparent metrics, and we should be very careful about how we apply martial law. That being said, I find it not only ridiculous but enraging that people would advocate flaunting quarantine out of high level principle. You do not have the right to do harm to others by acting as a viral carrier. You do not have the right to endanger other people with your behavior. You do not have the right to get sick behind principle and then demand scarce hospital resources and provider time. I'm sorry but that is not reasonable, ethical, or in line with the principles our country is based on.
Bound by the GDPR? Really? People here are giving out advice like a smart high school student who thinks he knows everything because he has read about it.
The real world does not work that way.
If you have any specific criticism, in particular about why you think the GDPR doesn't matter and why "the real world" works differently, I'd be happy to hear it.
They event chose to give a raise to the police and not the healthcare workers.
I only hope the EU steps in soon or we'll see Poland drifting towards an authoritarian regime
https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article207246011/Heidelberg-...
First, the measures in Germany are of course vigorously debated, and legal challenges are going ahead.
Second, that particular lawyer has declared all measures against the COVID-19 unconstitutional and has unilaterally "revoked" them on her website. She then became paranoid when there was a car parked near her house for a long time, hid behind cars, and asked passers-by to call the police, declaring herself to be "Public Enemy #1".
- she may or may not be generally paranoid, I would not be surprised either way
- she called the police because she felt surveilled and pursued
- her initial treatment by the police is really inappropriate if it happened as she describes (being cuffed behind her back on the ground, being pushed onto the floor in the psychiatric clinic headfirst) and I still would not be surprised if it happened that way
- I would not be surprised if this is unfortunately 'normal' for police encountering who they think of as a 'confused' person
- Aside from the way she described being treated by the police her experience might(!) be reasonable treatment for a person suspected of being paranoid with potential future self-harm. I do not know how this diagnosis is determined and whether it is accurate in this case.
- she seems very focused on herself and a conspiracy, talking about how 'of course' each of the police and the doctor/psychiatrists and everyone in Germany and everyone in the world knows her (I did not know of her for one), and that the receiving doctor/psychiatrist took ten minutes to arrive as he/she still had to receive orders 'from the top'
- the strongest indicator for being paranoid is that she states that the people in Germany and this world should wake up to this fake pandemic, which is orchestrated and that not a single person has died yet in Germany. The sincerity with which she states this reminds me of other conspiracy theorists on the far right.
Yes. She might have followers, you know.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatr...
After all, government knows best. This is not normal times; in this crisis, citizens' lives are at stake, so the government should be able to do anything, as long as they loudly claim their intentions are pure. Anyone who opposes the government isn't a criminal, because that would guarantee them some due process; they're an insane person who needs to be involuntarily treated. For their own good, of course.
/s
Actually doing something is curbed in many ways.
> unilaterally "revoked" them on her website.
So what, that's like Stallman redefining terms. Hardly a cause for concern, I wonder if some readers are mentally unstable if they take that seriously.
> declaring herself to be "Public Enemy #1"
If your website is shut down, why would you not get anxious?
The whole thing is an overreaction.
What you can't do is unilaterally decide that you don't like a law and ignore it. Asking other people to gather outside for a demonstration when this kind of action is currently disallowed is incitement and therefore illegal.
As others have said, debates around the current measures are allowed and happening. Several parties have already filed lawsuits. In all cases that I know of, the constitutional court has rejected the preliminary injunctions. This means that, while the constitutional court may still decide in the future that the laws were anti-constitutional, they have decided that the harm to the individual due to these laws does not outweigh the harm of these laws not being enforced _were_ they constitutional.
As to whether they needed to shut down the web site or whether that is actually legal: I don't know. But the police, especially local police, sometimes does things of questionable legality, as in every country. Of course, you can always sue the police and demand that your website be restored, and then the courts will examine your arguments. It's not a perfect system (no system is), but you do have legal options.
The majority of Germans is against the television protection money. You have to pay this protection money even if you do not own a television, or else you'll be thrown in debtor's prison and your credit score is ruined.
The protection money ruled "constitutional" by the Verfassungsgericht. That is how democracy works.
So, since you are so informed: What should I do? Found my own party, vote AfD? Neither of these is an actual option for me.
If you want to change that, you could move to Switzerland, where voters actually do regularly vote on issues, but be warned, that that system comes with its own set of disadvantages. Also noteworthy: the Swiss people recently voted on whether to keep the equivalent of the Rundfunkgebühr, and they overwhelmingly said yes, as soon as they realised how much they would otherwise lose; you see, it's one thing to claim you're against something when asked randomly during some survey, it's another to actually go and vote against it once you know your opinion matters and you've had some time reviewing the pros and cons.
By the way, I don't own a car and I still have to pay money for streets; I don't have children and have to pay for school; and I've never received unemployment benefits, yet have to pay for it. I don't complain about any of that because I think having public goods is a good thing.
You've asked me what I think you should do. I've outlined a lot of things in my previous post. That none of these is an "actual option" for you or that you think people won't care about your cause is not a failure of democracy. Nobody ever said that change is easy.
Poland (radical right government) and Hungary (far right government) have a pact where they veto any EU actions against one of them.
Members of EU are sovereign states. I think kicking them out of the union is only way to proceed if their system does not fit into the EU anymore.
The Italian government is allegedly markedly left, and locked a lot of people in their homes with two administrative acts (no action from the Parliament for many weeks), has made a government commission against fake news on the epidemic (with outside journalists, but it still smells like a Ministry of Truth), and is using quite a bit of pressure to keep people in their homes (nothing violent, but a presence and controls by the police far higher than normal). Regional governments of any sides are following up in the same manner up to threatening arrest if you are walking out if you don't have a documented reason.
Oh, and the Parliament is essentially shut down, and so the judicial system for the most part: everyone is too afraid of death.
Also the way they address Italians, like parents scolding children, is unbearable. The population is made up of citizens, not loyal subjects.
Simply put, as far as I can see the current pandemic has brought out the worst authoritarianism from all political sides.
Populations are made of children citizens. Italy voted Berlusconi into power multiple times.
I'm strong supporter democracy but the idea that voters are "adults" does not hold water. You need the mechanisms of liberal democracy and institutional processes for any resemblance of rationality to emerge from democratic process. Democracy is inherently dangerous.
People are indeed capable of acting irrationally. But they're still citizens and not subjects of the government, which is still accountable to them (for the good and the bad), or should be, at least.
This specific government acts in bad faith, far more than what can be considered tolerable (and the meaning for the choices made is lost completely).
Speak for yourself.
Same will happen in Italy in a few years.
"I think kicking them out of the union is only way to proceed if their system does not fit into the EU anymore."
To keep the EU clean, yes, but it won't accomplish anything locally: far right governments would actually love to get out of the European Union so they can do their nasty stuff unsupervised.
It's not EUs job to do that.
There is genuine grassroots support for illiberal government in both countries. People in these countries are divided and have to fight it out among themselves. The responsibility is to upkeep liberal democracy is in the hands of the people.
For a country to be eligble for EU membership, it has to be a democracy and be a signatory of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and acknowledge the legitimacy of the european court of human rights and European Court of Justice.
While the ECHR is not a EU institution, it is a cornerstone of european diplomacy both inside and outside the union.
(or in this case, the checks map Oder)
(I’m simplifying, of course; I’m no lawyer).
You can either be an activist and do something to convince your fellow citizens - or - enjoy (the hopefully soon to be reestablished) freedom of movement in the EU, move to a proper democracy and vote with your feet.
That was in Switzerland. The doctor [1] has a history of challenging establishment narratives and was previously arrested in conjunction with the chemical attacks in Syria.
I have read second hand accounts that assert that he was arrested, taken to a mental hospital, and has been released.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&u=https%3...
Even privacy advocates have argued that apps can, if developed well, be useful if developed with privacy in mind. See the link by the CCC or this post by Linus Neumann, who is affiliated with the CCC (only in German, unfortunately): https://linus-neumann.de/2020/03/corona-apps-sinn-und-unsinn...
Sorry if I have missed it, but to me your arguments were privacy issues and the technical difficulties (different platforms, Support) to get an app on enough smartphones to reach the critical number of participants. Don't get me wrong I totally agree, these are things that we first need to find a solution. But your post sounded to me like you have the opinion that contact tracing doesn't work.
Fear makes more people react emotionally.
“You were okay with TrackingApp 1.0, why wouldn’t you be okay with TrackingApp 2.0?”
If we give an inch now, will the government take a mile later?
Btw, it’s worth noting that last night in his press conference, Trump was asked about contact tracing apps. He emphasized that people are worried about constitutional implications. Personally, that’s refreshing for me, and seems to distinguish him from the Bush/Cheney era pushing of the Patriot Act, or Obama’s use of dragnet surveillance and secret FISA courts.
From the perspective of the centralized government, it's a race to the bottom with privacy rights and you know what famous racer D. Toretto said about races...
"It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning's winning."
therefore, so that we all may live on, you must give up your privacy.
It's only so that the appropriate authorities may tack down anybody you may have contacted; and if found to be virus carriers they will simply be quarantined. And frankly they might die, but we do this merely so that the rest of us may live on peacefully and prosper."""
e.g. take this 'and if found to be virus carriers they will simply be quarantined' and swap it out for another historical age statement such as a classic inquisition era "if found to be sinner/heretics/non-believers the church will help them repent" though, in the inquisition era there was no comparable surveillance technology.
I just wrote this, but I am not sure whether I agree. I am conflicted.
edit: after editing in the inquisiton example, I realized that I disagree (with many reservations) with the entire sentiment of initial triple-quote.
For example, if my mother is in a hospital dying from corona, and the system forbids me to see her (despite me taking precautions that I deem fit), I must revolt.
This of course sounds like nonsense, and I am also conflicted, but this is my intuition.
To die is, after all, part of life. There cannot be one without the other. Thus (logcially?) the right to live is equivalent to the right to die.
Edit: I should flesh this out a bit further.
In hindsight, cellphone data should have augmented contact tracing rather than just sitting on the sidelines and drawing maps a week later. In my opinion there is a time and place to wield technological power when there is a collective need. Ethicists can argue where the line is drawn but an existential threat to 2% of the infected seems sufficient, especially given how fast a pandemic spreads.
There are plenty of other ethical approaches, many of which would say that the upholding of certain rights is more important than any benefits gained from violating them.
It's not merely predicated on a utilitarian ethical viewpoint, it assumes that we've accurately accounted for costs of the options (eg, second and third order effects) when deciding rather than merely justifying our preferences with biased models.
Empirically, the second (biased models) happens considerably more often than the first (accurate accounting) -- to the point that even if you're a utilitarian, you have to admit it doesn't work in practice. You simply can't make the required benefit calculations for utilitarianism.
This is something businesses get wrong a lot: their numerical justification is actually a reflection of the biases of their staff, rather than an accurate accounting of the options.
As to the point of whether utilitarianism is a good ethical framework... well, at least no non-consequentialist ethical framework has ever convinced me. A naïve reading of utilitarianism has its problems, of course, but those can be accounted for; but the classical Kantian conundrum of not being allowed to lie to a murderer seems silly to me. Plus saying "principles matter" has just as many problems as the utilitarian approach, as nobody will be able to agree on those principles.
For further context: The example you replied to references this data in the hands of advertisers, with extremely questionable claims about their pseudo anonymization. That just made your comment before the edit less sensible. I believe such a debate might make sense at the level of a government agency, private entities exchanging that data is just a ridiculous idea.
As it currently stands, getting cell phone data would be like polishing the door knobs while your basement is flooded. There are bigger fish to fry, lower fruits to pick etc etc.
Should it be opt-in, should it be opt-out. Well I'm already aware of people who go out and leave their mobile at home, so you could ask that those this is going to need to target will not be targetable.
We are already hearing about immunity passports. I don't want to sound like a nut case, but I can see that once we have this sort of thing as commonplace to deal with Covid it will be expanded and never withdrawn. The phrase "the new normal" is starting to pop up, and I find that terrifying. I am already mourning the life we enjoyed just months ago.
I am terrified of what the future holds.
So many people are looking forward to getting out of lockdown and resuming their lives. I don't think those lives exist any more, and they will not return to us. Whatever is on the other side of this isn't what we had before.
So I would not be supprised and indeed would welcome countries doing Medical conscription and if you raise up whole generations who have done even a few weeks of medical training and with that, raise the basic level of health and first aid knowledge. That alone would make things better, would reduce those needing to go to the doctor and in the UK with a free access public health service, you cut down on people attending A&E and Doctors with silly issues that would be 101 first aid and basic knowledge treatable or preventable.
But that is just one whole area.
Food packaging, will change and maybe not in a good way. Early on we saw coffee outlets refuse to use reusable cups for fears of contamination. We have gone from the verge of lambasting individual fruits wrapped in plastic towards one that demands it almost.
Be so many ways things will change, directly and more so indirectly.
But not all bad, many people got to talk to neibours they never met, via windows a sense of community and shared issues and cohesion will be much better after this.
Though high-streets already suffering from online advantages, may well of seen the killer blow from this.
Also business wise, it will see many rethink business models and how they operate. Some will diversify, some change direction, some fold and new ones will spring out.
Back in the 70's in the UK we had milk delivered daily in glass bottles via electric vehicles. Over time that died out and plastic bottles from supermarkets being the main.
We may well see a return of such services and certainly for daily consumables like milk, fruit veg, bread. We will see an increase in companies offering that now as the demand and mentality for that demand after this all, will still be there.
Biggest one though, will be more companies open to flexible hours and working from home, which is great.
New vaccinations may become legally mandated. I can see a big backlash on this, but people will socially shame others into complying with the new norm. I mean, the anti-vax movement has ruined anyone's ability to even attempt to challenge vaccinations. This is worrying because there can be legit dialogs that need to be had around any new medication that is rushed to market. History has shown that vaccines can give cause for concern[1].
Then there is the drive for nationalism. Nations will want to secure their supply chains which could lead to tightening of borders in many different ways.
Cash could disappear. Already it's being argued as being a vector for transmitting viruses. Many stores will not accept cash at the moment.
I don't know, I am sure I could go deep down the rabbit hole on this one. I obviously don't know how this is going to play out and it likely won't be as overtly dystopic as my imagination might lead me to think. However I do think once the dust has settled all the subtle changes will leave us a little shocked about how much we lost.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....
There will probably be small changes (less handshaking, more acceptance of wearing masks when sick with anything, remote work somewhat more popular), but I don't think this is going to change American society in the way people think it will. Maybe healthcare reform and UBI will come sooner than they otherwise would've, but they're still far away.
I just disagree with this statement. After 9/11, flying got to be more of a pain in the ass, but for the other 99.9% of life, nothing really changed. More flags outside peoples' houses, maybe.
But what changed, appreciably for you? Because my life didn't really change, nor did anyone around me, from what I can tell.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/other/top-ten-abuses-power-911 [2] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44163852/ns/business-us_business/t...
Yip, that may well become a thing and as we know, that could play out in many ways. How do you make sure people carry them. We happily allow our beloved pets to be chipped with tracking RFID chips. We freely already carry around our own personal RFID bank cards and mobile phones that with each advancement in radio tech alone allows better tracking from the radio aspect alone, let alone all the other smart features built into the radio/chipset.
Thing is we take those around with us with a choice, any immunity passports, would the same level of choice play out.
You can get 100 people, give them the choice to carry tracking and 99 of them will be happy to do that, yet if you told those 100 people they had to, well - there would be way less than 99 who would happily comply and that is when things get messy.
Hence many and much enforcement of lockdowns have been overall, softy softly. In the UK we had a soft lockdown for about a week and the results was not as good, so a more formalised lockdown transpired. Still, mostly softly softly of move along, move along now. But still, it only takes a few to ignore things for the line to be moved further for all.
So whatever is needed or done, will be a fine balance in PR with the people and would need clear, precise reasons and durations and full intent outlined. Hence most will be pushed as a choice and if you are offing people some extra level of freedom back during lockdowns, then those that take up even voluntarily will PR wise, work well. Also won't be the ones that you would want to track anyhow in most cases. Though if enough go for it, you start to get a sense of mandate to make it more formalised knowing that the majority have already signed up freely. That is when things may well get interesting concerns.
For example, the fact that you could make your own alcohol in all sorts of ways and that regular people had easy enough access to alcohol didn't render prohibition irrelevant. Organized crime ran rampant and federal law enforcement ran rampant after them until enough people agreed "yeah this is stupid, let's just make booze legal again" for there to be political will to repeal prohibition.
Anyway, we don't have to guess what this will look like. This system has been beta tested in Oligarchs' pet project, the New China.
Cuba: It doesn't matter how many land lines you lock down, people want to watch Game of Thrones.
United States: It doesn't matter how many distilleries/dispensaries you close down, people want to drink and smoke.
China: It doesn't matter how many children the state says you can have, people want to have children.
The dystopia always emerges from the extremes states take to quell people's wants/needs, and almost always nabs the weakest or most brazen "criminals". There is a inexplicable beauty to this dynamic, individual wit versus collective bueracracy, that I admittedly find romantic.
In this case, individuals might start putting their phones in the fridge overnight, putting their phones in RF blocking sleeves (or just plain aluminum foil as seen in HK), or like you said, just plain leaving their phones at home.
If the state forces phones to act as a form of identity or requires a phone in public, all it takes is one edge case of "Old man without phone brutalized by police" for concessions to the rule. Would you be arrested for not charging your phone? What about if you have an older model? How would the state respond to a hacked version of the identity app being propagated?
The fractal of side effects expands as you attempt to answer each one of these questions, and that's why people need to believe the requirements are just and appropriate, unless of course your response is so over the top and totalitarian that only the most viciously clever and brave step up and challenge it.
"The Verge: Apple and Google have a clever way of encouraging people to install contact-tracing apps for COVID-19." https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/4/14/21219289/apple-...
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/challenge-proximity-ap...
Not saying CCC are wrong here - they're pretty much spot on, as so often - but making sweeping statements like this is doing a disservice to this much-needed discourse.
Your neighbor has a right to sleep in his home. If you blast music, you are disturbing the serenity of his home. That is a different question than the government coming into your private affairs to spy on you.
If you really believe that your assertion is applicable, apply it to this circumstance (digital surveillance), rather than setting up a different argument (music and sleep) where your assertion better applies.
Your assertion essentially amounts to "all clear principles are bad because they obscure exceptions." First, this is reflexive -- it applies to itself. Second, it is the burden of the exception to prove itself, not the burden of the rule to prove all of its own exceptions; the government needs a reason specific to me in order to observe my private affairs, and in absence of such a warrant I have a blanket protection from those observations.
Well use headphones or don’t crank the amp.
The privacy aspect should then be dealt with by enacting stringent time limits on the use of these tools, not by constraining them.
Here in Europe I see discussions and arguments that such tools cannot be deployed because they would breach privacy, or that people will refuse to use them for the same reason.
I think that this is like arguing about dinner on a sinking ship.
'Doing what is right', 'fighting this and that'.
Your own point made here is evidence that you too are at least partially in this state of mind, given that you equate our current situation to being on a sinking ship.
A number of questions come to mind:
Are we really in such a dire situation?
Is compromising on rights justified to get rid of this situation?
About 1. Some countries got hit very hard, communities ripped apart and families devastated. That's not even considering the drawn out consequences of the economic downturn. The situation is dire.
But on 2, it's much easier: I don't want you or anyone else to know about my stuff. Its nobodies business but my own. I completely opposed to any form of control in the name or for the sake of fighting this. Any technical measure I will oppose, probably quite successfully. I reject the premise that we're able to make effective decisions right now that are not clouded in fear, are not too drastic and can be modeled to effectively respect our rights.
There is no "bend on a totalitarian streak", that is the irrational fear.
In the US and Western Europe we are factually on a sinking ship. The economy and society as a whole are sinking. This must stop as soon as possible.
If tools like tracking apps allow to reopen sooner while controlling the pandemic then this ought to be the priority.
This is a minimal compromise of rights for a limited time only (the 'limited time' part is what ought to be the safeguard).
The fear, and frankly paranoia, is not on the side of being in favour of these tools, it is on the side of rejecting them for ideological reasons. It's seeking a pyrrhic victory: "Ah everything collapsed but at least no-one could track me on my commute to my long lost job!".
Our ideology, ideas and what we do and don't find acceptable in this world are what matters. We can't sacrifice our rights in the name of necessity because it just doesn't stop. ever. There will always be disease. There will always be terrorists. There will always be criminals, child pornography and drugs.
As an example of deaths that our system does find acceptable just look at the amount of deaths caused by drunk driving. It's technologically perfectly feasible to equip every car with a breathalyzer, but we don't. The number of deaths from the current disease is obviously higher, but that too will pass, the cars will still be there.
History is also littered with disaster and recovery. Doesn't mean every disaster has to happen, also doesn't mean things have to be sacrificed to stop one either. In the end that's my stance on this: rather face this current disaster, than the one we'd be constructing when we sacrifice our rights.
And that's just how it is, as far as I'm concerned.
[1] https://www.bitsoffreedom.nl/2015/04/30/during-world-war-ii-...
This is wrong. Governments have a long history of opportunistically expanding their reach and power when it comes to matters concerning privacy. The PATRIOT Act, for instance, or everything Snowden has written about. Only rarely do they voluntarily give it up.
I can see where you're coming from with your other points, but there's a good reason people here tend to be very distrustful of governments when it comes to privacy matters.
This is the same crap Congress tries to give us on so many issues. 'Here is our solution, its the only possible solution (its not) so it must be passed even though its terrible.'
A big worry in any crisis is that the "temporary" measures turn out not to be temporary. A credible way to guarantee that they are, in fact, temporary, would be a fantastic development in society's response to pandemics etc. (It's hard for me to imagine what a credible guarantee would look like -- if you purchase privacy-invading software X from a company, then after the crisis is past, that software still exists! Just by the fact that the software exists, it's now easier to re-institute its use...)
The flip side of this: right now, in the absence of such a guarantee, it's awfully difficult (at least in my mind, and many of the commenters here) to justify any erosion of privacy laws+practices. This is simply because the erosion will presumably be permanent, while the crisis is not.
Beyond that, guarantees are the same as always: We elect the people who draft the law.
If we need these apps we need them fast. We don't have the luxury to wait 6 months for clever implementations. Again, to me that's having priorities wrong.
The real fear isn't opt-in apps from Google/Apple. It's broad, new privacy-infringing legislation. That's the sneaky thing that could be largely invisible, abused for decades, and hard to undo. Just keep an eye out for that. Otherwise, let's try to maybe cut the length of this current situation by months.
IMHO, if (key point) it is deemed that contact tracing is crucial then it should be mandatory with government-approved apps. People who do not want to be traced are then 'free' to stay confined at home until this is over.
Trying to make it mandatory, and trying to enforce the confinement of dissenters, as you refer to, might actually lead to less total adoption in the US. People will protest and boycott, there'll be endless conspiracy theories (there already are, but way more people will believe these than 5G hoaxes; and worse, the theories may not even be implausible), and I think it'd just stir up a lot of trouble. A large percentage of Americans just don't like mandatory enforcement of measures that reduce freedom or privacy.
I think Google and Apple can present this in a way that will result in most people agreeing to it.
We don't have to wait 6 months. Those apps are easy to develop, there are several candidates already and others are being developed by the authorities themselves.