@maggiepint @wbucksoft @cgranade hi, yes, very much so. the dystopian potential is immense. if you do this, make sure it has strong checks and balances built in at both the technical and legal levels, from the start. you'll never manage to add them later.
@maggiepint @wbucksoft @cgranade there is a real public benefit to using cell phone location data for public health analysis, but speaking as a privacy expert: imagine the worst possible way it could be used, and you will never be disappointed.
@maggiepint @wbucksoft @cgranade for something like this, protections not only need to be designed into the system, there needs to be public discussion of the protections and their merits, and political will behind keeping them in place.
@maggiepint @wbucksoft @cgranade otherwise it's too easy to water things down later with small changes that are too technical to be newsworthy.
@maggiepint @wbucksoft @cgranade also, the distinction between Google having the data and the government having the data is increasingly meaningless. there is no 4th-amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure of user data held in the cloud, and with NSLs there's no transparency either.
@maggiepint @wbucksoft @cgranade if Google, or any other private entity, allows itself to know things like this... then governments will also know it, should they care to. that is the unfortunate reality.
