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Contact tracing raises concerns over privacy

By BELINDA ROBINSON in New York | China Daily Global | Updated: 2020-05-27 01:00

As restrictions loosen and many Americans flocked to beaches and barbecues this past Memorial Day weekend, businesses and governments are still seeking ways to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

One approach involves mobile-phone apps aimed at monitoring who has the coronavirus and their contacts have been launched worldwide, but privacy advocates have concerns.

Three US states — Alabama, North Dakota and South Carolina — have signed up to use Exposure Notification, an API (application programming interface) for contact tracing produced by Apple and Google that was released May 20. Several other states and 22 countries, including some in Europe, have also requested use of the API, the companies said.

More than 1.66 million people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus, and at least 98,000 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Globally, some 5.5 million are infected, with a death toll around 344,000.

The new Apple-Google API, once incorporated into apps developed by individual local governments, uses Bluetooth technology to inform anyone who was near an infected person for five minutes, with an anonymous message.

It will urge them to seek medical attention and is part of software automatically downloaded to iPhones and Android devices in May.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum told CNBC: "North Dakota is excited to be among the first states in the nation to utilize the exposure notification technology built by Apple and Google to help keep our citizens safe."

But privacy advocates have concerns.

Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit digital-rights campaign group, told China Daily: "As an organization that focuses on privacy and civil liberties, we recognize that contact tracing has been a tool of epidemiology for a long time.

"We're definitely more concerned about the use of technology, particularly cellphone location data, to conduct that kind of contact tracing because that type of information can be so incredibly sensitive and invasive and so easy to abuse."

In a move to reassure the public and privacy campaigners, the tech giants behind the software stress that they will not use much private information. They will, however, allow public health authorities to contact the infected user and collect data on their ZIP codes and phone numbers.

Apple and Google banned developers from using GPS data, which shows a user's location. It also won't allow any government to store data about a person or use the software without a person's knowledge or consent. Any data collected from the apps can't be used for advertising.

"I think that the proposal that Apple and Google put forth is not perfect, but at least preventing the use of GPS data is an important protection there," said Greer. "So, I think that states that are pushing forward with apps that do collect real-time location data rather than anonymized Bluetooth data, are putting their residents in quite a bit of danger.

"That kind of location data can be used for all kinds of purposes and can certainly be accessed by unauthorized parties or those looking to do harm, and so, generally speaking, we believe that it's important to be very cautious and have conversations about how to do this with both health experts and civil liberties and human rights experts."

It is believed that at least 60 percent of Americans need to sign up and use the apps for the system to work.

Apple and Alphabet Inc, Google's parent, said in a statement: "User adoption is key to success and we believe that these strong privacy protections are also the best way to encourage use of these apps."

Worldwide, governments believe that the apps, along with testing, are key to getting the public back to work safely.

But Adam Schwartz and Andrew Crocker, senior attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group devoted to defending digital privacy, wrote: "Because new government dragnet location surveillance powers are such a menace to our digital rights, governments should not be granted these powers unless they can show the public how these powers would actually help, in a significant manner, to contain COVID-19."

China was one of the first countries to launch a contact tracing app installed on WeChat and Alipay. It uses software to monitor temperature and determines with a color code — green for well, yellow for a person who has come into contact with an infected person, red for sick — whether someone is safe to go outside. People in some provinces must scan a QR code before traveling.

South Korea said it was matching CCTV data to identify and trace people near a person with COVID-19, while Israel used citizens' cellphone location data.

In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to have a "world-class track and trace app" ready by June 1 so that schools could reopen.

However, Privacy International, a charity based in London that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world, warned on its website: "What's being attempted with these apps is the accumulation of data on every person you've interacted with and possibly every location you've been. No government has ever known as much about you as they may be about to."

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