Apps that purport to track people infected with COVID-19 are a terrible idea imo for several reasons. Here are five:
1. In areas of low adoption, they will give people a false sense of security and could interfere with critical social distancing measures.
1. In areas of low adoption, they will give people a false sense of security and could interfere with critical social distancing measures.
2. In areas of high adoption, coronapps will cause panic---especially if the data is visualized in such a way (e.g., heat maps) that overemphasizes relative densities.
3. The privacy concerns are considerable. To say that there are no privacy concerns because the data is anonymized and encrypted is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of privacy harms, which are often structural in nature or experienced subjectively.
(I find it telling that proponents are pointing to the efficacy of mobile surveillance in South Korea, where apparently it is being used not for better information per se but to enforce quarantine.) technologyreview.com/s/615329/coron…
4. Alone or in combination, these apps will add noise that will further drown out signal. I get that we need more information. We need it in the form of more extensive testing and sharing of results by authoritative sources. Not random self-reporting.
5. Coronapps are part of a tired narrative of tech solutionism. We need to distance ourselves from each other for months. Full stop. Then we need to create to social safety net we should have had in such a wealthy nation all along.
It's a scary time and people want to help. If you have coding skills, what will materially help the many vulnerable people who are at physical and economic risk? I submit that crowdsourcing whom to avoid does not fit in this category.
PS: Like so many, I'm counting my blessings that I have the tools of communication I do have. This rant relates specifically to apps I've been reading about that encourage users to geotag themselves along with their health status.
Here’s exhibit A
Good coverage from @willknight
