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Will you download the contact tracing app?

jetsonx

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)

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Comments

poff

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

MattS1 wrote: »

You investigating the 5G towers too?

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

Xertz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beasty

Threads merged

WoollyRedHat

Beasty wrote: »

Threads merged

Apologies my Forum thread displaying is all messed up.

ronano

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

[Deleted User]

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

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

Not a chance.

wheresthebeef

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

Yes

Plumbthedepths

Yes and when this pandemic fades into the background I will be deleting it.

lawred2

I'll need to know more about it really

Red Alert

Depends whether it has a centralised or decentralised architecture. If it’s like the one in Germany / Austria then yes, if it’s like the UKs with a central DB then I’d be much more hesitant. Knowing the crap that passes for IT systems in this country I worry it’ll be the latter.

Peregrinus

wheresthebeef wrote: »

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.

It won't track your movements - it doesn't use location information.

What it tracks is who you spend time with, but not where you do that.

[Deleted User]

If it helps, definitely.

plodder

With software like this, there will always be a certain level of trust required. You can never really be sure what it is doing. So long as they are completely open about what it does and how it works and if I can read a detailed technical description of it, and it (claims to) work anonymously, without using any of my personal data, then I will download and use it.

JimmyVik

Yes. It will save lives and get us a normal life back.

lord quackinton

if the HSE are developing one it will take probably 5years and cost at least 1 billion and will work only from 10 to 4 Monday to Friday And cost 4.99cents to download

Red Alert

plodder wrote: »

With software like this, there will always be a certain level of trust required. You can never really be sure what it is doing. So long as they are completely open about what it does and how it works and if I can read a detailed technical description of it, and it (claims to) work anonymously, without using any of my personal data, then I will download and use it.

Given the marketing spin the HSE seem good at along with our technically illiterate journos, do you think we’ll ever see that?

Pinch Flat

Yes. My wife works in Dublin hospital and witnesses first hand the devastation this virus is causing . People already unwittingly share data to allow traffic and queue management at airports, so if this helps eliminate the virus and getting us back to normal quicker I'm all for it.