Will you download the contact tracing app?

jetsonx · 16-03-2020 12:42am #1

I know privacy is very important to people but I fear that drastic times call for drastic measures.

Let's say the Irish Government introduced a smartphone app tomorrow to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The app would record all your movements and triage the data against the movements of those infected with COVID-19. An app which could save thousands of lives.

Would you allow this app to be installed on your smartphone?

(The data would be solely used by health authorities)

fishy_fishy · 16-03-2020 12:43am

Yes. It was used very effectively in China, but it seems that the HSE can't be bothered letting us know the COUNTY involved never nind that sort of useful information so unfortunately can't see it happening

skooterblue2 · 16-03-2020 12:45am

jetsonx wrote: »

I know privacy is very important to people but I fear that drastic times call for drastic measures.

Let's say the Irish Government introduced a smartphone app tomorrow to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The app would record all your movements and triage the data against the movements of those infected with COVID-19. An app would could save thousands of lives.

Would you allow this app to be installed on your smartphone?

(The data would be solely used by health authorities)

Its always these draconian measures are brought in with a sugar coating. Its really about monitoring and controlling you. You wonder why so many have depression? Its because of constant observation on either cameras, social media or by smart phones. Edwards Snowdon, Chelsea Manning and others have all exposed this.

jetsonx · 16-03-2020 12:56am

skooterblue2 wrote: »

Its always these draconian measures are brought in with a sugar coating. Its really about monitoring and controlling you. You wonder why so many have depression? Its because of constant observation on either cameras, social media or by smart phones. Edwards Snowdon, Chelsea Manning and others have all exposed this.

I know about the potential downsides. But this is really a matter of life and death.

All this talk about Big Data. All the frankly useless and sh1t apps people install on their phones. This is one case where technology could be leveraged directly to save lives. In fact, it seems bizarre that we're not doing something like this. We have enough software developers living here. The telecom infrastructure is already in place.

skooterblue2 · 16-03-2020 12:59am

jetsonx wrote: »

All the frankly useless and sh1t apps people install on their phones. This is one case where technology could be leveraged directly to save lives. In fact, it seems bizarre that we're not doing something like this. We have enough software developers living here. The telecom infrastructure is already in place.

They are monitoring this stuff already, they are doing this without your permission. Most of these free games are collecting data for marketing.

siochain · 16-03-2020 12:59am

Absolutely, we need to do what ever is needed to slow this thing down.

skooterblue2 · 16-03-2020 1:00am

siochain wrote: »

Absolutely, we need to do whatever is needed to slow this thing down.

1984, with a sugar coating.... what about the next crisis? You are giving a civil servant/politician carte blanche to do "whatever" is necessary in a "crisis", like "in the national interest"?.

You took off all the safety catches that protect your privacy as a private citizen. What if you found yourself an enemy of the state like a rogue journalist? and apply the phrase "in the national interest"?

Ubbquittious · 16-03-2020 1:08am

If they had only closed the borders before cases started popping up here. They have some neck if they now expect people to welcome some big brother measures into their lives in a futile attempt to lessen impact of their fcuk up

skooterblue2 · 16-03-2020 1:11am

Ubbquittious wrote: »

If they had only closed the borders before cases started popping up here. They have some neck if they now expect people to welcome some big brother measures into their lives in a futile attempt to lessen impact of their fcuk up

But there is a "crisis" and its "in the national interest"?

I wonder if they justified all that snooping on Maurice McCabe and the editor of the Irish times Geraldine Kennedy, "in the national interest"? People have such short memories.

Capt'n Midnight · 16-03-2020 8:08pm

jetsonx wrote: »

I know privacy is very important to people but I fear that drastic times call for drastic measures.

Let's say the Irish Government introduced a smartphone app tomorrow to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The app would record all your movements and triage the data against the movements of those infected with COVID-19. An app which could save thousands of lives.

Would you allow this app to be installed on your smartphone?

(The data would be solely used by health authorities)

Oh you sweet innocent summer child. That ship sailed long before you got your first smartphone.

The government wouldn't need a tracking app. Like the Chinese version it would just be an app where they keep you in the loop.

All your movements and interactions are recorded because that's what smartphones do. The only difference between the brands and networks is who has access to the information.

There's two main eco-systems Apple/Google.
There's only three companies with masts 3/Eir/Vodafone.
Blackberry rolled over to the Saudis on encryption.
( It's a strange world where Microsoft barely register on the Big Brother scale. )

For near complete tracking a government could use other channels instead.
And then there's the phone brands and then there's the network equipment. And then there's the likes of facebook and twitter and other apps that are wide spread and on practically every phone already.

16-03-2020 8:09pm

skooterblue2 wrote: »

Its always these draconian measures are brought in with a sugar coating. Its really about monitoring and controlling you. You wonder why so many have depression? Its because of constant observation on either cameras, social media or by smart phones. Edwards Snowdon, Chelsea Manning and others have all exposed this.

So many have depression because it’s handier than working. It has absolutely **** all to do with the tinfoil hat stuff.

OP, I’d happily share my location with the HSE 24/7 if it helped.

Collie D · 16-03-2020 8:25pm

siochain wrote: »

Absolutely, we need to do what ever is needed to slow this thing down.

Separate anyone with a temperature and off to the gulags

Rufeo · 16-03-2020 8:26pm

Yes i would be allowing it.

Hande hoche! · 16-03-2020 9:22pm

Don't have a smartphone. Would probably spend the time mucking around with leaches instead.

Capt'n Midnight · 16-03-2020 9:42pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

If they had only closed the borders before cases started popping up here. They have some neck if they now expect people to welcome some big brother measures into their lives in a futile attempt to lessen impact of their fcuk up

They used to have 27,000 armed troops up north and 40% of the vehicle fuel was still laundered or smuggled. Official fuel imports fell while car ownership was going up.

It would only work if Northern Ireland blocked ports and airports too.

skooterblue2 · 16-03-2020 9:45pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

They used to have 27,000 armed troops up north and 40% of the vehicle fuel was still laundered or smuggled. Official fuel imports fell while car ownership was going up.

It would only work if Northern Ireland blocked ports and airports too.

That is different that was part of the Good Friday agreement. Totally different, price of peace.

0gac3yjefb5sv7 · 27-04-2020 12:37am

How will it work and what will be the benefits of it?

biko · 27-04-2020 7:56am

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/app-to-track-and-trace-covid-19-infections-being-developed-991213.html

It is expected that members of the general public and those who are sick could be asked to use the phone or computer facility in a bid to restrict the spread of the virus and even contain possible clusters

johnfás · 27-04-2020 7:59am

A pan European app is a much better idea and would get us towards normality a lot quicker.

Fr_Dougal · 27-04-2020 8:14am

The front line healthcare workers are doing a great job, but would I trust the HSE with any of my data? No.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/363-data-protection-breaches-recorded-by-hse-967300.html

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/hse-data-breaches-misplaced-patient-records-discovered-in-pub-lost-medical-files-turned-up-on-bus-38298556.html

And their response when someone acts responsibly when they find sensitive patient data on the street was deplorable: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/finder-of-patient-details-accused-by-hse-of-data-breach-922004.html

27-04-2020 8:37am

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

The front line healthcare workers are doing a great job, but would I trust the HSE with any of my data? No.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/363-data-protection-breaches-recorded-by-hse-967300.html

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/hse-data-breaches-misplaced-patient-records-discovered-in-pub-lost-medical-files-turned-up-on-bus-38298556.html

And their response when someone acts responsibly when they find sensitive patient data on the street was deplorable: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/finder-of-patient-details-accused-by-hse-of-data-breach-922004.html

HSE handing of personal data is deplorable and speaks to a lack of training on how to deal with such situations, however in the third case the election candidate who sent the data to the media was showboating for publicity. Came onto possession of the data on a Friday, and attempted to contact data protection officer on the Saturday - knowing well the office would be closed, and when advised to drop to reception in a sealed envelope to be processed after weekend, refused and instead contacted the media. CUH were not given a reasonable opportunity to address the breach.

Muahahaha · 27-04-2020 7:53pm

I cant see people opting into this in big numbers, many people wouldnt trust the HSE

0gac3yjefb5sv7 · 27-04-2020 11:28pm

Muahahaha wrote: »

I cant see people opting into this in big numbers, many people wouldnt trust the HSE

It should be mandatory

Risteard81 · 27-04-2020 11:45pm

MattS1 wrote: »

It should be mandatory

No it shouldn't.

I won't be installing any app.

0gac3yjefb5sv7 · 27-04-2020 11:49pm

Risteard81 wrote: »

No it shouldn't.

I won't be installing any app.

Selfish af. And that's why we are in lockdown for so long.

Herb Powell · 28-04-2020 12:06am

MattS1 wrote: »

Selfish af. And that's why we are in lockdown for so long.

EMBRACE THE MASS SURVEILLANCE OR YOU ARE KILLING GRANNY

0gac3yjefb5sv7 · 28-04-2020 12:19am

Herb Powell wrote: »

EMBRACE THE MASS SURVEILLANCE OR YOU ARE KILLING GRANNY

You investigating the 5G towers too?

Mr_Muffin · 28-04-2020 12:22am

Is it opensource?

Miike · 28-04-2020 12:23am

The tin foil hattery on the forum is insane lately. Much worse than ever before.

I would make my entire person health record public knowledge if it would save a single life from being endangered. That's just my personal take on it those arbitrary links posted above that has nothing to do with handling of electronic data but instead physical files and documents (bar the MHS related one which was straight up ignorance of one member of staff.)

I will be using the app, it's working phenomenally in Singapore and Australia.

s1ippy · 28-04-2020 12:23am

Here is the website of the company doing it

http://www.machine.ie

Fann Linn · 28-04-2020 12:30am

s1ippy wrote: »

Here is the website of the company doing it

http://www.machine.ie

Tinder.

poff · 28-04-2020 10:28am

The website of machine.ie is a bit minimalistic to put it nicely.

Germany moved (I think due to pressure of the public discussion) to the decentralised option of the app. The HSE seems still to be a member of the Pepp-Pt (https://www.pepp-pt.org/). You see the members near the bottom of the page. The Pepp-Pt are supporting the centralised option. Many organisations left the Pepp-Pt due to this (Joint Statement on Contact Tracing: Date 19th April 2020: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OQg2dxPu-x-RZzETlpV3lFa259Nrpk1J/view).

The app could be helping with the contact tracing but, due to lack of support and trust, it will be a failure when certain conditions are not met. https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2020/contact-tracing-requirements

A paper about the decentralised design and some analysis about the different approaches: https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%20Paper.pdf

Right now, I can not see any transparancy of the HSE and would not recommend/install/use such an app.

From https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0426/1134930-mobile-contact-tracing-app/

Simon McGarr, director of Digital Compliance Europe said that the HSE needs to be more open about how the app will work and its data protection implications to gain public trust in it.
He said there are experts in technology, privacy and data protection that can help the government in "getting it right" if they are allowed to know what the HSE is planning.

We are not allowed to know what the HSE is planning? Seriously? Aren't we expected to donate our personal data? And we are not allowed to see what the app will be doing?

My conclusion is: Secret development = hidden agenda = can not be trusted

Unless I know the workings of such an app in full and the development being open sourced now, I can not see the app helping spreading the virus due to people refusing to install the app. It needs maybe 60% of the population to use such an app to make it work and the HSE will mess it up due to intransparancy. Waste of time and money.

Herb Powell · 28-04-2020 11:58am

MattS1 wrote: »

You investigating the 5G towers too?

Not all, though it does look like a bitta craic, I'll give em that.

Xertz · 28-04-2020 12:29pm

It wasn't due to pressure from public discussion that the Germans moved. Apple & Google have agreed a standard for decentralised, data protected approaches to this and more or less told European Governments to get stuffed if they want to use this to data grab.

To make it work, we will need both Android and iOS and Apple in particular will not allow active, always on, bluetooth scanning i.e. where the phone is constantly sniffing and hunting for bluetooth signals, other than in a very controlled way.

They've an API (set of APIs) that will allow these apps to work and there's an agreed protocol that will allow iOS and Android devices to communicate to do this, and it's all in a decentralised way.

Apple literally refused to budge a millimetre on this and were very concerned about both function creep and security issues for the OS itself, and Google seems to have agreed with them (not that Google isn't more than a little data grabby itself).

You could get an Android app to do always-on bluetooth scanning, but without iOS on board in Ireland you would have a ridiculous mess as the % of iPhones in use here is quite high by comparison to most of Europe and vastly higher than China, where the state can mandate all sorts of things on phones.

https://www.businessinsider.nl/france-uk-apple-contact-tracing-apps-2020-4?international=true&r=US

From an Irish point of view, it would make a lot more sense to build an app on Apple/Google APIs and within that spec, particularly as we will also likely have local support form the presence of both of their HQs for EMEA being here, but also it would just be easier, more likely to work very well and be stable.

Basically if the HSE pushes out a centralised app that's outside Apple's APIs, it won't work on iPhones and will be at best buggy on Android.

They need to utilise the fact that those two companies have huge presence here and work with them to get something rolled out fast.

I mean, given our proximity to so many of those tech companies, we should be first in the world to get this out and ready. It would make little sense to be following the UK or France on some implementation that is trying to swim up a river. Rather, just get the tech companies on board and get on board with them on a solution that more people would be comfortable with using.

If you don't use their APIs you're basically reinventing the wheel and it may well turn out to be the new square wheel.

Not to mention reduced maintenance costs, reduced overheads, better likelihood of a slick implementation, etc etc etc..

poff · 28-04-2020 1:11pm

Thanks, another interesting article to read and thanks for the clarification. I knew, there were talks with apple but I had no idea whether they could succeed or not.

However, unless it will be open sourced and specifications are known, I would not trust the app. If android apps can do background bluetooth scanning, I need to be able to look inside the code - or maybe the programming community who would understand more than me

. Until then, no app and bluetooth turned off.

Lisha · 28-04-2020 1:15pm

I tested positive in March. I’m officially Covid free at the minute. But as I can’t get a second test to coroborate this who knows 100%.

On this app will i register as a positive, previous positive or negative does anyone know?

conorhal · 28-04-2020 1:22pm

LOL, no.

Why is the solution to every crisis from terrorism to covid always seem to boil down to 'you must accept ever increasingly Orwellian levels of state surveillance' instead of, oh I don't know, fixing the health system or addressing the root cause of terrorism?

sabat · 28-04-2020 1:33pm

MattS1 wrote: »

It should be mandatory

Will they be handing out free smartphones to use it on? Will it be illegal to go out without a smartphone?

Xertz · 28-04-2020 6:45pm

Lisha wrote: »

I tested positive in March. I’m officially Covid free at the minute. But as I can’t get a second test to coroborate this who knows 100%.

On this app will i register as a positive, previous positive or negative does anyone know?

Nobody knows yet. There's no detail on it.

Red Alert · 28-04-2020 9:29pm

If they can do it without centralised data collection then I'd be prepared to install it, otherwise no. Given our usual level of IT fiascos I wouldn't hold out much hope for this.

poff · 29-04-2020 9:25am

I talked to a few people. One said 'decentralised and open source' or I would rather smash my phone'. For most other people, trust is the problem, it is more important than the techlology. How can the HSE or the government make those people trust if the HSE does not even trusts the people by openly telling them what is on their agenda?

I think, the app will be a failure and wasted mony and resources unless the concept will change to openess.

I once got the advice: if somebody says 'trust me', just don't.

poff · 29-04-2020 9:39am

Suggestion:

all they have to do is develop as normal but push the code to a repository every day. They don’t even have to accept changes from the public, they just have to make the code available (with commit history.. if they can’t do that then they don’t deserve to be called software developers and should be a big red flag in itself)

Then, we all could see what they are doing, how they are getting on. They could get help from the community, the code can be checked and verified and it would be easier to establish trust.

WoollyRedHat · 29-04-2020 9:13pm

Thought this would be interesting. When new Covid Contact Tracing app is released, will you opt-in? If not why?

Beasty · 29-04-2020 9:21pm

Threads merged

WoollyRedHat · 29-04-2020 9:24pm

Beasty wrote: »

Threads merged

Apologies my Forum thread displaying is all messed up.

ronano · 29-04-2020 10:04pm

poff wrote: »

The website of machine.ie is a bit minimalistic to put it nicely.

Germany moved (I think due to pressure of the public discussion) to the decentralised option of the app. The HSE seems still to be a member of the Pepp-Pt (https://www.pepp-pt.org/). You see the members near the bottom of the page. The Pepp-Pt are supporting the centralised option. Many organisations left the Pepp-Pt due to this (Joint Statement on Contact Tracing: Date 19th April 2020: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OQg2dxPu-x-RZzETlpV3lFa259Nrpk1J/view).

The app could be helping with the contact tracing but, due to lack of support and trust, it will be a failure when certain conditions are not met. https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2020/contact-tracing-requirements

A paper about the decentralised design and some analysis about the different approaches: https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%20Paper.pdf

Right now, I can not see any transparancy of the HSE and would not recommend/install/use such an app.

From https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0426/1134930-mobile-contact-tracing-app/

We are not allowed to know what the HSE is planning? Seriously? Aren't we expected to donate our personal data? And we are not allowed to see what the app will be doing?

My conclusion is: Secret development = hidden agenda = can not be trusted

Unless I know the workings of such an app in full and the development being open sourced now, I can not see the app helping spreading the virus due to people refusing to install the app. It needs maybe 60% of the population to use such an app to make it work and the HSE will mess it up due to intransparancy. Waste of time and money.

fantastic post, thank you

29-04-2020 10:10pm

What personal details will people be giving the HSE that they don’t trust them with? Bank details? ATM PIN numbers? Pornhub search history? What you had for dinner?

MrMusician18 · 30-04-2020 1:16am

As I'm sure lots of you know, the HSE is developing a contact tracing app. Additionally, Apple and Google are also collaborating on something similar.

How it works is that the app will log all the Bluetooth device that it sees and if an individual tests positive an alert will be sent out to all that came in Bluetooth contact with them. As a solution, it's quite clever imo as it will work indoors and isn't as power hungry as GPS.

The big problem with it is that in order for it to be effective, you need about 60-80% buy in from everyone. If too few download it, it is worthless. So why wouldn't you install it? Data protection and privacy seem to be the main issues people are highlighting, yet I see whole lives on social media. Probably the largest issue is inertia, and that it requires everyone to do something.

So when it comes, will you download it?

Queasy Tadpole · 30-04-2020 1:29am

Not a chance.

wheresthebeef · 30-04-2020 7:24am

Yes, having witnessed first hand the devastation this virus is having on people and having to care for people sick and dying with Covid. I'd pretty much do anything that had a chance of helping reduce transmission. I dont care if the HSE know my movements. All they are going to see is - he was at work for 5 days, went home and went to Tesco once a week. Hardly the scandal of the century.

XsApollo · 30-04-2020 7:26am

Yes

Will you download the contact tracing app?

Will you opt-in to new Covid Contact Tracing app when released? 1238 votes

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