14 ms·

U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

307 points by dmitrygr 7y ago

sbmthakur 7y ago
Looks like they wish to follow in the footsteps of South Korea: https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south-korean-authorities-used-law-fight-coronavirus https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south-korean...
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Conveniently they already have a system that can track associations N hops from any given person.
- mistermann 7y ago
  Will they use it and risk the public asking how they came to know so much, as if by magic? I'm hoping after this is all over perhaps the public might finally be in a mood more conducive to sitting down and discussing things in a reasonable manner, without the involvement of government and their corporate influence, and ideally on a platform with minimum censorship, and has a solution for dealing with ideological issues that have ruined so much of the rest of social media.
- angry_octet 7y ago
  Which is based on discrete data from a graph built from phone calls, fixed line locations and SMS/email meta data. It doesn't have (from the Snowden dump) selectors for intersecting location tracks. TBH, I just don't think that is the way the FBI finds dead drops.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    Was based. They haven't been swimming in place for ten years.
    - angry_octet 7y ago
      They were already drowning in data, and as reported recently, basically no arrests from it in years. It can't detect terrorists -- no Americans, not foreigners, fascist or religious extremists, any better than stuff the FBI was already doing.
wyxuan 7y ago
This should've happened a long time ago. I really think there should be more cooperation between governments and tech companies so they can come up with solutions like this much faster like they did in China
- palijer 7y ago
  What solutions did they come up with in China?
  - Laforet 7y ago
    Some surveillance and a lot of footwork. Cell phone location data helps to suggest if a person has travelled to certain location with their regular phone but that is about it.
  - sampo 7y ago
    > What solutions did they come up with in China? New York Times science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. explains in this video, and in this article: https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928 https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china-aylward.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china-...
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    Welding populations into APT blocks
- whycombinater 7y ago
  I'd prefer to just get arrested every time I sneeze.
  - ilammy 7y ago
    Hey, you’re in America. So stop sneezing or I’ll shoot you! /s
    - 7y ago
creato 7y ago
Wouldn't it make more sense to work with the cell service providers? Surely at least some people turn off location permissions? I would think the cell service providers have much more reliable data.
- wyxuan 7y ago
  Technically that data is anonimized, and although its not hard to deanonomize, its not easy to scale
- angry_octet 7y ago
  They have cell location data, but could have quite a few people in it. They already have this data, and I would guess that they find it useless for contact tracing. In contrast, Google/Apple and to some degree fb have super accurate traces of exactly which shops and offices you went to.
- kanox 7y ago
  > I would think the cell service providers have much more reliable data. Google tracks location history from GPS and this is accurate to at most a few meters and it can be use to check if people walked by each other on the street. As far as I know phone service providers don't have anything similar. The cell you're connected to can cover an entire neighborhood.
  - sgt101 7y ago
    That was true for GSM, but 3g & 4g have directional signal management, and track location to enable cell 2 cell handover. Information is limited inside.
LatteLazy 7y ago
Just ask the NSA they already have all of it, with decades of control data too.
- jbay808 7y ago
  I guess they'd prefer to maintain appearances.
DaniloDias 7y ago
I wish our politicians would just fucking own it and declare their own surveillance state rather than this bullshit death of a thousand cuts public/private partnership horseshit.
angry_octet 7y ago
They already have a mechanism to do this -- it's called a John Doe (wiretap) warrant. What they really want is full take -- the complete location movements of the US population. This would be useful for COVID-19 tracking ... and authoritarian control.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  When they pass the laws that require us to keep our powered-on phones on our persons at all times, we'll know that they've perfected the Angel Teeth.
  - trevyn 7y ago
    Angel Teeth?
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    If you're following HK/China, you know that they are already doing this tracking. Visitors and quarantined people are being required to do this in HK by a number of reports. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Hong-Kong-tells-30-families-to-wear-tracking-wristband-or-face-jail https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Hong-Kong-tell... Up until the virus, they were mandating no face covering so their all seeing surveillance camera network could see your face.
everyone 7y ago
I'm curious, if I have no internet access and gps turned off on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S7) is there still hidden shit which is tracking my location? .. Like, is GPS not really turned off for example?
- vageli 7y ago
  > I'm curious, if I have no internet access and gps turned off on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S7) is there still hidden shit which is tracking my location? .. Like, is GPS not really turned off for example? Your location can still be determined by at least your service provider based on the strength of the signal it emits as received from the (presumably various) antenna sites in the area.
- sneak 7y ago
  You can’t use a phone without the tower knowing where your phone is. When data is sent to you it’s not transmitted via every tower in the country; it is sent out only via the tower to which your phone is associated. The only way to avoid this is to turn your phone off/disconnect from the network. Sadly network access and coarse location logging are impossible to unlink.
- mirimir 7y ago
  GPS is receive-only. You'd need substantial power to hit geostationary satellites. If you truly have no cellular or WiFi connectivity, nothing will be tracking your location. However, hardware kill switches are the only way to be sure of that. Or physically messing with the hardware.
ddmma 7y ago
‘in moments of crisis, people are willing to hand over a great deal of power to anyone who claims to have a magic cure—whether the crisis is a financial meltdown or, as the Bush administration would later show, a terrorist attack’ (Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine)
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Speaking of Klein, she'll need to add a few elements to her Pandemic Shock Doctrine script: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/we-know-script-naomi-klein-warns-coronavirus-capitalism-new-video-detailing-battle https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/we-know-script-...
  - ddmma 7y ago
    The updated edition should contain a special chapter on the underground agenda from Davos or whatever G meetup
  - chippy 7y ago
    Klein has gotten lost in the anti-Trump personality rhetoric, she should re-gain her focus on the critic of society / anti capitalism roots. Basically a Democrat would be doing the same things as Republicans with regards to her warnings but you don't get as many books sold if you say that. And its more comfortable to think that if you just change one person it will all change than knowing that one removing person really doesnt change much.
- srcmap 7y ago
  Maybe law can be created to allow state/local government to collect and use such info when "declaration of local infectious deceases emergency" by state governor. Especially allow for department of public health to access the Google's Sensor Vault data in emergency situation. I would support that BUT I also understand how that might open the "pandora's box" for all other government requests/laws like the existing geofencing warrant.
  - ta999999171 7y ago
mistersquid 7y ago
Before the Federal government gets location data, they're going to have to test to find out who has it.
- readflaggedcomm 7y ago
  "The Fed" refers to the Federal Reserve, not federal agencies, branches, or the government in general. Not to be confused with "feds," referring to federal agents individually or in general. Also, the submission title is simply missing a word: the article uses "Federal government in talks [...]" which is a very conventional usage, whereas "Federal" as a standalone noun is considerably more rare.
  - mistersquid 7y ago
    Thanks for the usage analysis. Long week with too much information overload. I'll update to at least be colloquially correct. Thanks!
walterbell 7y ago
From https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandem... > We don’t know exactly what this new future looks like, of course. But one can imagine a world in which, to get on a flight, perhaps you’ll have to be signed up to a service that tracks your movements via your phone. The airline wouldn’t be able to see where you’d gone, but it would get an alert if you’d been close to known infected people or disease hot spots. There’d be similar requirements at the entrance to large venues, government buildings, or public transport hubs. There would be temperature scanners everywhere, and your workplace might demand you wear a monitor that tracks your temperature or other vital signs. Where nightclubs ask for proof of age, in future they might ask for proof of immunity—an identity card or some kind of digital verification via your phone, showing you’ve already recovered from or been vaccinated against the latest virus strains.
- kaybe 7y ago
  OK so people who don't carry their phone everywhere - is there no place for them in that world?
  - lioeters 7y ago
    > demand you wear a monitor Looks like that'll cover the rest of us..
tempestn 7y ago
The government tracking everyone's location all the time would be/is a gross infringement on privacy. The government tracking everyone's location for a limited time period in order to curb a deadly epidemic seems much more reasonable. The difficulty is trusting them to give back that power when the crisis is over. If not for the experience of the Patriot Act, I'd be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt there. Still, if this were done in a truly open way, and the criteria for ending the program were clearly specified at its outset, it's something I could support. Looking at the Chinese response, advanced and extensive contact tracing has allowed them to restart significant commerce in areas where initial outbreaks have been controlled through social distancing. Doing the same here might not only save lives, but also livelihoods. Of course I would be nervous about the potential for overreach, misuse, and acclimatization. But if the allowable uses and time-frame were set into law, perhaps those concerns would be outweighed by the potential benefits.
- didibus 7y ago
  They could make an app and work with Apple/Google to have it auto-installed, but where the app can be uninstalled by the user if they wish to opt out.
  - alfiedotwtf 7y ago
    ... and sunset this so once it’s cured, remove the capability whatsoever. But it wont
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Google could just give OLAP access to feds. They already have all the data needed thanks to Maps.
- srcmap 7y ago
  This is happening already - anyone who use Google map has their location data collected for the past 10 years with default setting. Police can issue geofencing warrant against the location/time and Google will share that data. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/18/google_geofence_warrant/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/18/google_geofence_war... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-location-tracking-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-loc...
bscphil 7y ago
The interesting thing about ideas like this is that they reveal how authoritarianism during times of stability does a terrible amount of damage during times of crisis. This is the sort of problem that could be solved in a better world; collecting location data to find interactions between people would allow you to get them tested faster and prevent a disease from spreading. But it simply can't be done in this country primarily because everyone has the entirely reasonable fear that the feds want this power for nefarious reasons and will never give it up - and they're probably right. If we had a society where privacy was an absolute right, and civic trust in our community organizations and institutions was built up over time, during a crisis like this one we could come together and find agreement on a way of providing this data to a responsible institution that would use it only for the purpose of saving lives and then delete it when the crisis was over. And they'd lose access to future data at that point too. Anyone who still didn't trust the communal institutions could opt out, but the point of building up this trust is that it makes people want to work together and feel safe doing so. We're so far from that in this country that we're not only paranoid about privacy issues, it seems altogether most likely that our secret agencies are actively planning to exploit this crisis to be able to spy on us in the future.
- guscost 7y ago
  I’ve regressed to my cynical default in the past few days, but “a large institution that I would trust with this authority” sounds like pure fantasy.
  - bscphil 7y ago
    I don't know, maybe it is. Maybe the politics of our world simply are that cynical and won't allow for such a thing to exist. But I guess I'm hoping it isn't. I'm trying to imagine how a non-authoritarian institution would work; it wouldn't have the "authority" to compel anyone to turn over their data, but just about everyone would have enough trust in the community and its decision making process to be okay with it. What I guess I'm asking is ... what if the organizations we built looked more like the WHO, and less like the CIA?
    - 7y ago
smaccona 7y ago
I have been somewhat conflicted/despairing about Taiwan’s response (only 77 cases and 1 death as of right now, 2020-Mar-17, despite reslly cloze ties with China and an almost equally early onset) since I read this: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 a couple of weeks ago. Paragraph 2 is especially instructive. I have historically been dead against the type of cross referencing and identification this article discusses, but their capability for pulling multiple disparate sources together to allow tracing, categorization and enforced tracking of all individuals is massively impressive. We really need to either figure out a way to execute on these capabilities without revoking privacy, or else accept that some granting of privacy (whether to Google or another entity) will be inevitable.
- vxNsr 7y ago
  Even if we gave the feds access to cell phone data and even if we allowed them to cross reference it with border points of entry, it would be useless. Cellphone data doesn’t have a common data entry with info you give at the border, additionally even if that part worked: we don’t have a single EHRS. So getting that info to the people that need it would require some sorta convoluted fax scheme. Basically, there’s nothing we can use from what Taiwan did so don’t feel bad about it. (also at this point it’s no longer being spread by ppl coming from outside, its ppl inside the country giving it to each other.) We need to do two things to be ready for the next pandemic. 1) Come up with a system for tracking it at points of entry. 2) Create a system and process for containment once it’s no longer contained.
- oska 7y ago
  I've been posting that link in various comments on the web over the last week, it's a very interesting article. But Taiwan is not the US; they have shown a very healthy trend away from authoritarianism over the last 33 years since the lifting of Martial Law in 1987 (and the 40 years of 'White Terror' [1] that preceded it). Also, on the question of authoritarianism, I think there is a case for greater tolerance of it during a defensive war, where a nation is battling for its survival. And I think a pandemic can be characterised as a defensive war against an invisible, completely merciless enemy. Not to say that blanket authoritarianism should be allowed but measures that make sense and help in the battle should be shown greater tolerance for a limited duration. Of course this is the whole idea behind (duration limited) emergency powers legislation. Going back to Taiwan, their 40 years of martial law also shows the risk of abuse, however I would describe the KMT as an invading power, not a native, somewhat trusted authority (as is more the case with their present, democratically elected government). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)
onetimemanytime 7y ago
They'll never give it back
fink 7y ago
Might be working on it in Canada with Rogers in Canada. https://ipolitics.ca/2020/03/16/ford-doesnt-rule-out-using-cell-data-to-trace-covid-19-patients/ https://ipolitics.ca/2020/03/16/ford-doesnt-rule-out-using-c...
nicois 7y ago
I suggested something similar but based on using Bluetooth and running an app locally. This would be more sensitive to proximity while potentially giving away slightly less data about exactly where you are, and easier to opt out of, either temporarily (while at home say) or completely. There could also be the option of logging nearby Bluetooth addresses locally only and looking up an online database of infected owners, or submitting collected data online to allow aggregation and preemptive notifications of potential exposure before symptoms show
- mshroyer 7y ago
  I was thinking along similar lines. Maybe it's possible to use BLE for this (don't know if the standard PXP profiles would be applicable or you'd need something else). You could also have app-level 24-hour rolling identifiers to prevent non-infected people's contacts from being correlated over time, even locally—if that would make people more comfortable using such an app. (The app would have to keep track of all its previous identifiers; if the user is found to be infected, all their previous identifiers would be marked as such in the database.) Some challenges off the top of my head: - What polling rate is needed? (How do disease experts define a "contact"?) What's the battery impact? - What fraction of the population has BLE-capable phones? - What fraction of the population keeps their phones physically on their person as they go about their day? - Can distance be roughly inferred from RSSI? Does the mapping of RSSI to distance vary much depending on the transmitting radio / phone model? - If you live in an apartment, you might be identified as a "contact" of your neighbor even if you never breathe the same air, etc.
rock_artist 7y ago
Israel started using cellphone tracking as of today. An in stable (transitional) government got an approval from the justice department. The tracking is based on location / cell data stored at the mobile operators and should be used for tracking people around a positive covid person to send text messages asking them to get into their home to a lock down for 14 days. Cellphone data is retrospective of course. However, once asked to go home. Enforcement will used current location data.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Current location data of their phones that is.
- int_19h 7y ago
  They already had a law that allowed Shin Bet to collect that data without any warrants, though. And to use it for many purposes - just not an epidemic.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  The _interim_ government (_not_ an actual government), which is headed by a criminal who has been evading his trials on several corruption scandals for several years, has given itself approval to access people's geo-location data, phone conversation history, browsing history etc. using some covid-19-related excuse. The government had initially tried to have parliament authorize this measure - but the "secret services" committee, discussing the matter, did _not_ approve immediately, requiring more information. So the government just used one of the draconian powers it has... thanks to anti-Palestinian legislation. The tracking will _not_ be limited to covid-19 patients. It is a total travesty. It should be said in fairness that the legal infrastructure for this has been laid over a decade ago with the "Big Brother" law and the General Security Service law. People were silent about it then, and now the chickens have come home to roost.
js8 7y ago
Cynic in me thinks that this is a request from the richest people and other elites, who want to isolate themselves from the infected, all the while blocking policies and measures that would actually help them. I also want to point out, there are low tech solutions to track and control coronavirus spread. Simply isolate infected or suspected people, not in their homes, but in a hospital built specially for the purpose. Chinese did that. Whether this is preferable to mass surveillance is your choice. I think it has merits and is less authoritarian overall.
grey-area 7y ago
Best solution to this IMO is a special app which allows you to check in, prove your virus status (have it, had it, don't have it yet). Map of other users in the area so you know you're safe. You could then use that to check in to shops etc. and not be allowed in without showing status, those who have it have to stay home and check in for a given period. Uses biometrics to ensure a given user is using it. Apple should be working on this. After the virus is contained or has burned out everyone deletes the app. No feds snooping at location data required.
- zhte415 7y ago
  > Map of other users in the area so you know you're safe. I think that would be a terrible idea. Not everyone in the world is a rational-thinking HackerNews reader ;). I would imagine it would lead to cases of mob-mentality which could be very thoughtful like community support for food/necessity delivery but also cases of unfortunate mob-mentality that could be very bad. > You could then use that to check in to shops etc. and not be allowed in without showing status This is exactly what's being done in China. But without the map of your neighbours. Everyone (that cares to go out) has a 'green' 'amber' 'red' status code via Ali or Tencent. Green indicates fine, Amber indicates movement (provincial or international, sometimes inter-city depending on province) within the past 14 days, Red indicates suspected.
- forkexec 7y ago
  Nope. Terrible.
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dmtroyer 7y ago
Nice work on the title.
PeterStuer 7y ago
There is no way to anonymize location data at the granularity required to make sense in the context of the objectives stated.
sub7 7y ago
First person to make a phone with hardware switches for gps, bluetooth, wifi, cellular and microphone gets my money.
- jrib 7y ago
  https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-hardware-kill-switches/ https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-h... might be worth trying?
  - sub7 7y ago
    Need good specs and app ecosystem but I love this.
- mab122 7y ago
  Also pinephone. https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ Unfortunately the GNSS (GPS) is on one chip with modem, but otherwise great feature to have killswitches for cameras and comms. https://wiki.pine64.org/images/8/89/PinePhone_switches.jpeg https://wiki.pine64.org/images/8/89/PinePhone_switches.jpeg
  - megous 7y ago
    If you don't want location tracking, you need to turn off the modem anyway.
mrkeen 7y ago
Isn't this already the case? Even before the smartphone era, haven't you always been revealing your location to your local cell towers?
- MaxBarraclough 7y ago
  Your telco knows which tower you're connecting to, yes, otherwise the system would never work. As the title makes clear, this is about the government gaining access to that information.
dredmorbius 7y ago
WashPo is the source, and better, article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/17/white-house-location-data-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/17/white-h...
apk-d 7y ago
They could, of course, do this the way any other type of institution would do it: create an app that people would voluntarily install to gather this data. Playing by the rules isn't how governments work these days, though.
ray991 7y ago
What if every coronavirus victim voluntarily uploads their location data publically (their identity kept anonymous). Now you can, without uploading your own data anywhere, check if you have ever been in vicinity of any of them. If you have been, you can get tested and then upload your own data if that comes out positive. This way not eveyone has to share their data, only a few who have been infected.
- stagas 7y ago
  Exactly, push right instead of pull. But it would require the systems to be designed in such a way that the user has ownership of the data they produce. GDPR should have solved that. Google location services have a complete history but it is not something I can download and share with a 3rd party which would in theory simply scan for possible encounters with infected people. We need to design systems that are interoperable, if a system is collecting data I produce, I should be able to retrieve that data at the click of a button, and share them to another service if I wish so.
- markvdb 7y ago
  Cellular triangulation is not sufficiently accurate for that. GPS signal has the same problem, and is often not available inside.
- tastroder 7y ago
  > their identity kept anonymous If I have your location data, you are not anonymous anymore. Especially these days where you likely spent most hours of the day in your home.
z3t4 7y ago
Many governments already track and save all communication in a big graph database - in order to know who communicates with whom - so they can find "terrorists". It's just that in some places "terrorist" means people, journalists, etc, that oppose the corrupt government. So the government already know who communicates with who. And now they also want to feed everyone's location to that database, so they can know everyone who has ever met with or talked to a "terrorist". Where I live you can be sentences to wear a tracking device instead of a prison sentence. Now everyone will be prisoners.
- zabana 7y ago
  A terrorist is whoever the government says they are, I think it's time for us to wake up to the reality of things.
harlanji 7y ago
No comment that I’ve seen seems to acknowledge rejection of carrying a phone around. In order for the data to be uncompromised there would need to be a mandate to carry the phone everywhere. If not participating meant being cast out of society, some people might be okay with that. How should we handle it?
throwaway97777 7y ago
Well, buckle up folks. Android's GLS service has an absolute insane data ingestion pipeline consisting of sensor fusion from GPS, Wifi, accelerometer, barometric data, and cell tower locations. It's accurate to within meters, can locate you inside buildings, can count your footsteps, and even knows what floor you've been on. It's been used by Google to tune its indoor WiFi maps and improve location accuracy for years. Anyone who has high location accuracy mode turned on and has Google Play Services has already been unwittingly uploading "anonymized" location data multiple times an hour for literally years. In many cases such anonymized data is accurate to within a meter and contains accelerometer data that can literally count your footsteps and determine if you are walking, running, riding in a car, etc. Anonymized GLS data is what informs traffic congestion and many other "non scary" services. Google believes the negotiation of a 7-day expiration of randomized UID is sufficient anonymization to meet the legal definition in all of its markets. It might be right about the legal definition. It's wrong if it believes it actually anonymizes data. Google believes a popup notifying that high accuracy mode may upload "anonymized usage data" to Google's services constitutes informed consent according to GDPR. I think the EU would disagree if they knew the technical capabilities of Google's infrastructure. Google's internal privacy review system believes that they are safeguarding the privacy of its users. Their model does not take into account NSLs or interference from intelligence agencies. And it absolutely did not foresee this. The surveillance dystopia is here, folks, and your Android phone won't do anything noticeably different. They'll flip some switches in their ingestion pipeline and have an insanely powerful draconian surveillance network instantly. It's over.
- eggie 7y ago
  A more hopeful interpretation. This can be a tool for good. It's not necessary for the state to have access. We already have access. This capability is precisely what we need to generate data that can be used to resolve this crisis and allow us to safely exit from quarantine. The GDPR allows individuals to request access to their own data. They can voluntarily share this with their health systems, communities, and governments, such as when testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. This doesn't have to be open-ended, just for recent data that could help track transmission and find other contacts. On the flip side, individuals who don't know if they're carriers can plug their own data into a system that relates it with the movements of affected people and warns them if they need to get tested.
woodson 7y ago
Already happening in Austria: (link in German) https://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/ausgangsbeschraenkung-a1-liefert-bewegungsprofile-an-regierung/400783565 https://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/ausgangsbeschraenkung-a1-l...
- lorenzhs 7y ago
  That sounds rather like the traffic feature of Google/Apple Maps than what's discussed in the comments here. The article you linked is very clear that it's aggregated and only segments with at least 20 people on them are reported. If I understand the Hill article correctly, the US discussion is about the same kind of data ('An unnamed OSTP official told The Washington Post that they were “encouraged by American technology companies looking to leverage, aggregate, anonymized data to glean key insights for COVID-19 modeling efforts.”'), yet the majority of the comments seem to be assuming that it's about tracking individuals' locations to enable contact tracing. I don't get that impression from the Hill article at all. What's actually being proposed, while not unproblematic, sounds rather more palatable than the authoritarian nightmare that's being discussed here.
- tastroder 7y ago
  Germany as well now https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/wie-breitet-sich-das-coronavirus-aus-rki-bekommt-handydaten-von-deutscher-telekom/25655144.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/wie-breitet-sich-das-coro...
cnxsoft 7y ago
I read an article the other day explaining that's one of the methods South Korea used to control the spread of the virus.
pgnas 7y ago
Never let a crisis go to waste.
Arnt 7y ago
Meanwhile in Taiwan: in 2004 the authorities planned how to respond to this crisis, and got the necessary rights. Then they spent 15 years not abusing these rights, and now used them effectively (including phone data). The middle part is important there, the one about "15".
dTal 7y ago
What good is phone data if they don't even administer sufficient virus tests? They should first tackle the low-hanging fruit that doesn't involve mass surveillance, to show good intentions, before being allowed access to such dangerous data.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
xfitm3 7y ago
Nope. No fucking way. Whatever temporary powers granted are akin to a drug dealers 'first one is free'.
gioele 7y ago
Another sad +1: Italy is already using phone location data to track people and measure the effectiveness of the quarantine: https://archive.is/6xXNu https://archive.is/6xXNu (archived from https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_marzo_17/coronavirus-cosi-lombardia-controlla-movimenti-via-cellulare-75c3d226-6897-11ea-9725-c592292e4a85.shtml?refresh_ce-cp https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_marzo_17/coronavirus-cos...)
kchoudhu 7y ago
Yeah, ok: fuck off. Send someone to interview subjects of interest like everyone else.
tsukurimashou 7y ago
Even if the US had real-time data about every citizen movement, what would they do with it, they cannot move huge populations of people like China can
- cbayram 7y ago
  Potentially narrow down and identify asymptomatic spreaders of the virus in early forming geo clusters. This information could lead to more effective quarantine measures early on or post containment to avoid further outbreak eruptions.
fyp 7y ago
It would be so useful if I got a notification if I happen to have crossed paths with a person who later turned out to be infected so I can get tested too. This will preempt so many asymptotic transmissions. Such apps are already deployed in china: https://youtu.be/YfsdJGj3-jM?t=303 https://youtu.be/YfsdJGj3-jM?t=303 We don't trust the government but what if it's just a private company who does it? Google already has your location info: https://www.google.com/maps/timeline https://www.google.com/maps/timeline They are definitely already using the information in aggregate to provide traffic jam info. Hell I am sure facebook already does this for suggesting friends too. On the balance of privacy vs social good, I don't think there's even much slippery slope left to protect.
forkexec 7y ago
Is this going to be the excuse to roll tanks and missiles down the street and suspend elections too?
andrewseanryan 7y ago
Well... it worked in South Korea. It would have to be temporary and only for positive tests.
34679 7y ago
"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." Milton Friedman
908087 7y ago
As soon as Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Brin, Page, Pichai, and anyone on the government end who supports this program start sharing their locations with us in real time, we can discuss the possibility of letting them do this.
cbayram 7y ago
We are in a pandemic and this won’t be the last. Gov’ts and society are scrambling to contain the virus, save lives, economy and society. Pandemics sow seeds of mistrust among neighbors, xenophobia and society starts falling apart. Be kind, compassionate and constructive if you can help it. This is about self-preservation. If there was ever a case for “move fast, break things”, this is it. Your location data is already whored out to target you in every which way. We have tremendous data and tech capabilities. We should absolutely use them to effectively track and quarantine the contagion. For me the threat of terrorism and Patriot act was bullshit reason to erode our rights and liberties, but this is different. We should absolutely revisit these encroachments on privacy by out gov’t in a post-mortem and legislate accordingly. When it comes to gov’t, I share a healthy dosage of mistrust. This is one of the reasons I support the second amendment. But remember that the gov’t are of the people and for the people. It is THE institution to defend our individual selves against threats we can’t individually battle. As Michael Lewis puts it, we have got to stop gutting the gov’t due to reactionary fear-mongering and mistrust. We are only robbing ourselves and our children of their future. This is a reason to feel patriotic for me.
thehoomanist 7y ago
No. “But anonymizing... and we should use data to...” No.
tilolebo 7y ago
I have just read a German article explaining that Deutsche Telekom provided 5 GB of location data to the Robert Koch Institute. The data will be analyzed to understand the mobility of German residents. So it's not real time tracking but it's still tracking.
fatjokes 7y ago
The conversation is dominated by the fear of gov't abuse. So few point to how successfully South Korea has leveraged their vast surveillance infrastructure to tackle this problem while maintaining a vibrant democracy. (When's the last time the US actually imprisoned a leader? Or even held a powerful person to account without pardon?) The lack of trust in the US is really disappointing. Americans are so proud of its democracy---yet consistently hate and distrust the government. I fear at the end of all of this, it'll be like the line at the end of The Big Short: "They will be blaming immigrants and poor people."
- _underfl0w_ 7y ago
  > When's the last time the US actually imprisoned a leader? Or even held a powerful person to account without pardon? Chelsea Manning comes to mind, and that's just in the past month.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Some of the things you're saying seem contradictory (American politicians are rarely imprisoned for their crimes, therefore Americans should be more trusting of their government? That seems completely backward) so forgive me if I've misunderstood you completely. With that said... > "The conversation is dominated by the fear of gov't abuse. So few point to how successfully South Korea has leveraged their vast surveillance infrastructure to tackle this problem while maintaining a vibrant democracy. (When's the last time the US actually imprisoned a leader? Or even held a powerful person to account without pardon?)" South Korea isn't all sunshine and roses either. They had numerous military coupes in post-war half of the 20th century. One of their dictators was sentenced to death for massacring hundreds of pro-democracy protestors, but was then pardoned for this. Things might not be so bad in South Korea currently, but the nastier stuff is still in living memory today. South Koreans would be wise to tread carefully when empowering their government. I think the cautious attitude modern Germans have towards these matters is a good approach: "Never again" rather than "It could never happen again." As for the attitudes of Americans, no organization nor individual is entitled to trust; trust must be earned. Insofar as Americans don't trust their government, it's because their government hasn't earned their trust. On the contrary, the American government has frequently violated whatever little trust anybody has in it. Modern America may not have any recent military dictatorships like South Korea, but there is nevertheless a lot of disturbing unpleasantness in recent history.
jriot 7y ago
Could we all just not carry our phones everywhere we go.
lousken 7y ago
In czech republic we already started doing this today [0] Of course, it requires permission from the infected person [0] http://www.apms.cz/novinky/mobilni-operatori-pomahaji-trasovat-polohu-nakazeneho-pouze-s-jeho-vyslovnym-souhlasem http://www.apms.cz/novinky/mobilni-operatori-pomahaji-trasov...
qweknvds 7y ago
Thank you liberals for blowing this "disease" way up beyond proportion and inviting the fascists over for your tea party! You can all go jump off the bridge now!
qweknvds 7y ago
Everyone should immediately go buy a firearm right now. It's your civic duty to defend against tyranny.
dminzi 7y ago
I’m young and thus likely naive. But, is it not possible for a company like Mozilla to make a small tracking app that users opt in for. Then, they get rid of this when it is all over. I say Mozilla because, from what I understand, it is very privacy orientated, but any trustable company would do (ie not google, amazon, or Facebook).

307 points by dmitrygr 7y ago

Looks like they wish to follow in the footsteps of South Korea: https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south-korean-authorities-used-law-fight-coronavirus https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south-korean...

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago

Conveniently they already have a system that can track associations N hops from any given person.

mistermann 7y ago
Will they use it and risk the public asking how they came to know so much, as if by magic? I'm hoping after this is all over perhaps the public might finally be in a mood more conducive to sitting down and discussing things in a reasonable manner, without the involvement of government and their corporate influence, and ideally on a platform with minimum censorship, and has a solution for dealing with ideological issues that have ruined so much of the rest of social media.
angry_octet 7y ago
Which is based on discrete data from a graph built from phone calls, fixed line locations and SMS/email meta data. It doesn't have (from the Snowden dump) selectors for intersecting location tracks. TBH, I just don't think that is the way the FBI finds dead drops.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Was based. They haven't been swimming in place for ten years.
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    They were already drowning in data, and as reported recently, basically no arrests from it in years. It can't detect terrorists -- no Americans, not foreigners, fascist or religious extremists, any better than stuff the FBI was already doing.

wyxuan 7y ago

This should've happened a long time ago. I really think there should be more cooperation between governments and tech companies so they can come up with solutions like this much faster like they did in China

palijer 7y ago
What solutions did they come up with in China?
- Laforet 7y ago
  Some surveillance and a lot of footwork. Cell phone location data helps to suggest if a person has travelled to certain location with their regular phone but that is about it.
- sampo 7y ago
  > What solutions did they come up with in China? New York Times science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. explains in this video, and in this article: https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928 https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china-aylward.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china-...
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  Welding populations into APT blocks
whycombinater 7y ago
I'd prefer to just get arrested every time I sneeze.
- ilammy 7y ago
  Hey, you’re in America. So stop sneezing or I’ll shoot you! /s
  - 7y ago

creato 7y ago

Wouldn't it make more sense to work with the cell service providers? Surely at least some people turn off location permissions? I would think the cell service providers have much more reliable data.

wyxuan 7y ago
Technically that data is anonimized, and although its not hard to deanonomize, its not easy to scale
angry_octet 7y ago
They have cell location data, but could have quite a few people in it. They already have this data, and I would guess that they find it useless for contact tracing. In contrast, Google/Apple and to some degree fb have super accurate traces of exactly which shops and offices you went to.
kanox 7y ago
> I would think the cell service providers have much more reliable data. Google tracks location history from GPS and this is accurate to at most a few meters and it can be use to check if people walked by each other on the street. As far as I know phone service providers don't have anything similar. The cell you're connected to can cover an entire neighborhood.
- sgt101 7y ago
  That was true for GSM, but 3g & 4g have directional signal management, and track location to enable cell 2 cell handover. Information is limited inside.

LatteLazy 7y ago

Just ask the NSA they already have all of it, with decades of control data too.

jbay808 7y ago
I guess they'd prefer to maintain appearances.

DaniloDias 7y ago

I wish our politicians would just fucking own it and declare their own surveillance state rather than this bullshit death of a thousand cuts public/private partnership horseshit.

angry_octet 7y ago

They already have a mechanism to do this -- it's called a John Doe (wiretap) warrant. What they really want is full take -- the complete location movements of the US population. This would be useful for COVID-19 tracking ... and authoritarian control.

jessaustin 7y ago
When they pass the laws that require us to keep our powered-on phones on our persons at all times, we'll know that they've perfected the Angel Teeth.
- trevyn 7y ago
  Angel Teeth?
- angry_octet 7y ago
  If you're following HK/China, you know that they are already doing this tracking. Visitors and quarantined people are being required to do this in HK by a number of reports. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Hong-Kong-tells-30-families-to-wear-tracking-wristband-or-face-jail https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Hong-Kong-tell... Up until the virus, they were mandating no face covering so their all seeing surveillance camera network could see your face.

everyone 7y ago

I'm curious, if I have no internet access and gps turned off on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S7) is there still hidden shit which is tracking my location? .. Like, is GPS not really turned off for example?

vageli 7y ago
> I'm curious, if I have no internet access and gps turned off on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S7) is there still hidden shit which is tracking my location? .. Like, is GPS not really turned off for example? Your location can still be determined by at least your service provider based on the strength of the signal it emits as received from the (presumably various) antenna sites in the area.
sneak 7y ago
You can’t use a phone without the tower knowing where your phone is. When data is sent to you it’s not transmitted via every tower in the country; it is sent out only via the tower to which your phone is associated. The only way to avoid this is to turn your phone off/disconnect from the network. Sadly network access and coarse location logging are impossible to unlink.
mirimir 7y ago
GPS is receive-only. You'd need substantial power to hit geostationary satellites. If you truly have no cellular or WiFi connectivity, nothing will be tracking your location. However, hardware kill switches are the only way to be sure of that. Or physically messing with the hardware.

ddmma 7y ago

‘in moments of crisis, people are willing to hand over a great deal of power to anyone who claims to have a magic cure—whether the crisis is a financial meltdown or, as the Bush administration would later show, a terrorist attack’ (Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine)

dredmorbius 7y ago
Speaking of Klein, she'll need to add a few elements to her Pandemic Shock Doctrine script: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/we-know-script-naomi-klein-warns-coronavirus-capitalism-new-video-detailing-battle https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/we-know-script-...
- ddmma 7y ago
  The updated edition should contain a special chapter on the underground agenda from Davos or whatever G meetup
- chippy 7y ago
  Klein has gotten lost in the anti-Trump personality rhetoric, she should re-gain her focus on the critic of society / anti capitalism roots. Basically a Democrat would be doing the same things as Republicans with regards to her warnings but you don't get as many books sold if you say that. And its more comfortable to think that if you just change one person it will all change than knowing that one removing person really doesnt change much.
srcmap 7y ago
Maybe law can be created to allow state/local government to collect and use such info when "declaration of local infectious deceases emergency" by state governor. Especially allow for department of public health to access the Google's Sensor Vault data in emergency situation. I would support that BUT I also understand how that might open the "pandora's box" for all other government requests/laws like the existing geofencing warrant.
- ta999999171 7y ago

mistersquid 7y ago

Before the Federal government gets location data, they're going to have to test to find out who has it.

readflaggedcomm 7y ago
"The Fed" refers to the Federal Reserve, not federal agencies, branches, or the government in general. Not to be confused with "feds," referring to federal agents individually or in general. Also, the submission title is simply missing a word: the article uses "Federal government in talks [...]" which is a very conventional usage, whereas "Federal" as a standalone noun is considerably more rare.
- mistersquid 7y ago
  Thanks for the usage analysis. Long week with too much information overload. I'll update to at least be colloquially correct. Thanks!

walterbell 7y ago

From https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandem... > We don’t know exactly what this new future looks like, of course. But one can imagine a world in which, to get on a flight, perhaps you’ll have to be signed up to a service that tracks your movements via your phone. The airline wouldn’t be able to see where you’d gone, but it would get an alert if you’d been close to known infected people or disease hot spots. There’d be similar requirements at the entrance to large venues, government buildings, or public transport hubs. There would be temperature scanners everywhere, and your workplace might demand you wear a monitor that tracks your temperature or other vital signs. Where nightclubs ask for proof of age, in future they might ask for proof of immunity—an identity card or some kind of digital verification via your phone, showing you’ve already recovered from or been vaccinated against the latest virus strains.

kaybe 7y ago
OK so people who don't carry their phone everywhere - is there no place for them in that world?
- lioeters 7y ago
  > demand you wear a monitor Looks like that'll cover the rest of us..

tempestn 7y ago

The government tracking everyone's location all the time would be/is a gross infringement on privacy. The government tracking everyone's location for a limited time period in order to curb a deadly epidemic seems much more reasonable. The difficulty is trusting them to give back that power when the crisis is over. If not for the experience of the Patriot Act, I'd be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt there. Still, if this were done in a truly open way, and the criteria for ending the program were clearly specified at its outset, it's something I could support. Looking at the Chinese response, advanced and extensive contact tracing has allowed them to restart significant commerce in areas where initial outbreaks have been controlled through social distancing. Doing the same here might not only save lives, but also livelihoods. Of course I would be nervous about the potential for overreach, misuse, and acclimatization. But if the allowable uses and time-frame were set into law, perhaps those concerns would be outweighed by the potential benefits.

didibus 7y ago
They could make an app and work with Apple/Google to have it auto-installed, but where the app can be uninstalled by the user if they wish to opt out.
- alfiedotwtf 7y ago
  ... and sunset this so once it’s cured, remove the capability whatsoever. But it wont
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Google could just give OLAP access to feds. They already have all the data needed thanks to Maps.
srcmap 7y ago
This is happening already - anyone who use Google map has their location data collected for the past 10 years with default setting. Police can issue geofencing warrant against the location/time and Google will share that data. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/18/google_geofence_warrant/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/18/google_geofence_war... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-location-tracking-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-loc...

bscphil 7y ago

The interesting thing about ideas like this is that they reveal how authoritarianism during times of stability does a terrible amount of damage during times of crisis. This is the sort of problem that could be solved in a better world; collecting location data to find interactions between people would allow you to get them tested faster and prevent a disease from spreading. But it simply can't be done in this country primarily because everyone has the entirely reasonable fear that the feds want this power for nefarious reasons and will never give it up - and they're probably right. If we had a society where privacy was an absolute right, and civic trust in our community organizations and institutions was built up over time, during a crisis like this one we could come together and find agreement on a way of providing this data to a responsible institution that would use it only for the purpose of saving lives and then delete it when the crisis was over. And they'd lose access to future data at that point too. Anyone who still didn't trust the communal institutions could opt out, but the point of building up this trust is that it makes people want to work together and feel safe doing so. We're so far from that in this country that we're not only paranoid about privacy issues, it seems altogether most likely that our secret agencies are actively planning to exploit this crisis to be able to spy on us in the future.

guscost 7y ago
I’ve regressed to my cynical default in the past few days, but “a large institution that I would trust with this authority” sounds like pure fantasy.
- bscphil 7y ago
  I don't know, maybe it is. Maybe the politics of our world simply are that cynical and won't allow for such a thing to exist. But I guess I'm hoping it isn't. I'm trying to imagine how a non-authoritarian institution would work; it wouldn't have the "authority" to compel anyone to turn over their data, but just about everyone would have enough trust in the community and its decision making process to be okay with it. What I guess I'm asking is ... what if the organizations we built looked more like the WHO, and less like the CIA?
  - 7y ago

smaccona 7y ago

I have been somewhat conflicted/despairing about Taiwan’s response (only 77 cases and 1 death as of right now, 2020-Mar-17, despite reslly cloze ties with China and an almost equally early onset) since I read this: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 a couple of weeks ago. Paragraph 2 is especially instructive. I have historically been dead against the type of cross referencing and identification this article discusses, but their capability for pulling multiple disparate sources together to allow tracing, categorization and enforced tracking of all individuals is massively impressive. We really need to either figure out a way to execute on these capabilities without revoking privacy, or else accept that some granting of privacy (whether to Google or another entity) will be inevitable.

vxNsr 7y ago
Even if we gave the feds access to cell phone data and even if we allowed them to cross reference it with border points of entry, it would be useless. Cellphone data doesn’t have a common data entry with info you give at the border, additionally even if that part worked: we don’t have a single EHRS. So getting that info to the people that need it would require some sorta convoluted fax scheme. Basically, there’s nothing we can use from what Taiwan did so don’t feel bad about it. (also at this point it’s no longer being spread by ppl coming from outside, its ppl inside the country giving it to each other.) We need to do two things to be ready for the next pandemic. 1) Come up with a system for tracking it at points of entry. 2) Create a system and process for containment once it’s no longer contained.
oska 7y ago
I've been posting that link in various comments on the web over the last week, it's a very interesting article. But Taiwan is not the US; they have shown a very healthy trend away from authoritarianism over the last 33 years since the lifting of Martial Law in 1987 (and the 40 years of 'White Terror' [1] that preceded it). Also, on the question of authoritarianism, I think there is a case for greater tolerance of it during a defensive war, where a nation is battling for its survival. And I think a pandemic can be characterised as a defensive war against an invisible, completely merciless enemy. Not to say that blanket authoritarianism should be allowed but measures that make sense and help in the battle should be shown greater tolerance for a limited duration. Of course this is the whole idea behind (duration limited) emergency powers legislation. Going back to Taiwan, their 40 years of martial law also shows the risk of abuse, however I would describe the KMT as an invading power, not a native, somewhat trusted authority (as is more the case with their present, democratically elected government). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

onetimemanytime 7y ago

They'll never give it back

fink 7y ago

Might be working on it in Canada with Rogers in Canada. https://ipolitics.ca/2020/03/16/ford-doesnt-rule-out-using-cell-data-to-trace-covid-19-patients/ https://ipolitics.ca/2020/03/16/ford-doesnt-rule-out-using-c...

nicois 7y ago

I suggested something similar but based on using Bluetooth and running an app locally. This would be more sensitive to proximity while potentially giving away slightly less data about exactly where you are, and easier to opt out of, either temporarily (while at home say) or completely. There could also be the option of logging nearby Bluetooth addresses locally only and looking up an online database of infected owners, or submitting collected data online to allow aggregation and preemptive notifications of potential exposure before symptoms show

mshroyer 7y ago
I was thinking along similar lines. Maybe it's possible to use BLE for this (don't know if the standard PXP profiles would be applicable or you'd need something else). You could also have app-level 24-hour rolling identifiers to prevent non-infected people's contacts from being correlated over time, even locally—if that would make people more comfortable using such an app. (The app would have to keep track of all its previous identifiers; if the user is found to be infected, all their previous identifiers would be marked as such in the database.) Some challenges off the top of my head: - What polling rate is needed? (How do disease experts define a "contact"?) What's the battery impact? - What fraction of the population has BLE-capable phones? - What fraction of the population keeps their phones physically on their person as they go about their day? - Can distance be roughly inferred from RSSI? Does the mapping of RSSI to distance vary much depending on the transmitting radio / phone model? - If you live in an apartment, you might be identified as a "contact" of your neighbor even if you never breathe the same air, etc.

rock_artist 7y ago

Israel started using cellphone tracking as of today. An in stable (transitional) government got an approval from the justice department. The tracking is based on location / cell data stored at the mobile operators and should be used for tracking people around a positive covid person to send text messages asking them to get into their home to a lock down for 14 days. Cellphone data is retrospective of course. However, once asked to go home. Enforcement will used current location data.

raxxorrax 7y ago
Current location data of their phones that is.
int_19h 7y ago
They already had a law that allowed Shin Bet to collect that data without any warrants, though. And to use it for many purposes - just not an epidemic.
einpoklum 7y ago
The _interim_ government (_not_ an actual government), which is headed by a criminal who has been evading his trials on several corruption scandals for several years, has given itself approval to access people's geo-location data, phone conversation history, browsing history etc. using some covid-19-related excuse. The government had initially tried to have parliament authorize this measure - but the "secret services" committee, discussing the matter, did _not_ approve immediately, requiring more information. So the government just used one of the draconian powers it has... thanks to anti-Palestinian legislation. The tracking will _not_ be limited to covid-19 patients. It is a total travesty. It should be said in fairness that the legal infrastructure for this has been laid over a decade ago with the "Big Brother" law and the General Security Service law. People were silent about it then, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

js8 7y ago

Cynic in me thinks that this is a request from the richest people and other elites, who want to isolate themselves from the infected, all the while blocking policies and measures that would actually help them. I also want to point out, there are low tech solutions to track and control coronavirus spread. Simply isolate infected or suspected people, not in their homes, but in a hospital built specially for the purpose. Chinese did that. Whether this is preferable to mass surveillance is your choice. I think it has merits and is less authoritarian overall.

grey-area 7y ago

Best solution to this IMO is a special app which allows you to check in, prove your virus status (have it, had it, don't have it yet). Map of other users in the area so you know you're safe. You could then use that to check in to shops etc. and not be allowed in without showing status, those who have it have to stay home and check in for a given period. Uses biometrics to ensure a given user is using it. Apple should be working on this. After the virus is contained or has burned out everyone deletes the app. No feds snooping at location data required.

zhte415 7y ago
> Map of other users in the area so you know you're safe. I think that would be a terrible idea. Not everyone in the world is a rational-thinking HackerNews reader ;). I would imagine it would lead to cases of mob-mentality which could be very thoughtful like community support for food/necessity delivery but also cases of unfortunate mob-mentality that could be very bad. > You could then use that to check in to shops etc. and not be allowed in without showing status This is exactly what's being done in China. But without the map of your neighbours. Everyone (that cares to go out) has a 'green' 'amber' 'red' status code via Ali or Tencent. Green indicates fine, Amber indicates movement (provincial or international, sometimes inter-city depending on province) within the past 14 days, Red indicates suspected.
forkexec 7y ago
Nope. Terrible.

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dmtroyer 7y ago

Nice work on the title.

PeterStuer 7y ago

There is no way to anonymize location data at the granularity required to make sense in the context of the objectives stated.

sub7 7y ago

First person to make a phone with hardware switches for gps, bluetooth, wifi, cellular and microphone gets my money.

jrib 7y ago
https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-hardware-kill-switches/ https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-h... might be worth trying?
- sub7 7y ago
  Need good specs and app ecosystem but I love this.
mab122 7y ago
Also pinephone. https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ Unfortunately the GNSS (GPS) is on one chip with modem, but otherwise great feature to have killswitches for cameras and comms. https://wiki.pine64.org/images/8/89/PinePhone_switches.jpeg https://wiki.pine64.org/images/8/89/PinePhone_switches.jpeg
- megous 7y ago
  If you don't want location tracking, you need to turn off the modem anyway.

mrkeen 7y ago

Isn't this already the case? Even before the smartphone era, haven't you always been revealing your location to your local cell towers?

MaxBarraclough 7y ago
Your telco knows which tower you're connecting to, yes, otherwise the system would never work. As the title makes clear, this is about the government gaining access to that information.

dredmorbius 7y ago

WashPo is the source, and better, article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/17/white-house-location-data-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/17/white-h...

apk-d 7y ago

They could, of course, do this the way any other type of institution would do it: create an app that people would voluntarily install to gather this data. Playing by the rules isn't how governments work these days, though.

ray991 7y ago

What if every coronavirus victim voluntarily uploads their location data publically (their identity kept anonymous). Now you can, without uploading your own data anywhere, check if you have ever been in vicinity of any of them. If you have been, you can get tested and then upload your own data if that comes out positive. This way not eveyone has to share their data, only a few who have been infected.

stagas 7y ago
Exactly, push right instead of pull. But it would require the systems to be designed in such a way that the user has ownership of the data they produce. GDPR should have solved that. Google location services have a complete history but it is not something I can download and share with a 3rd party which would in theory simply scan for possible encounters with infected people. We need to design systems that are interoperable, if a system is collecting data I produce, I should be able to retrieve that data at the click of a button, and share them to another service if I wish so.
markvdb 7y ago
Cellular triangulation is not sufficiently accurate for that. GPS signal has the same problem, and is often not available inside.
tastroder 7y ago
> their identity kept anonymous If I have your location data, you are not anonymous anymore. Especially these days where you likely spent most hours of the day in your home.

z3t4 7y ago

Many governments already track and save all communication in a big graph database - in order to know who communicates with whom - so they can find "terrorists". It's just that in some places "terrorist" means people, journalists, etc, that oppose the corrupt government. So the government already know who communicates with who. And now they also want to feed everyone's location to that database, so they can know everyone who has ever met with or talked to a "terrorist". Where I live you can be sentences to wear a tracking device instead of a prison sentence. Now everyone will be prisoners.

zabana 7y ago
A terrorist is whoever the government says they are, I think it's time for us to wake up to the reality of things.

harlanji 7y ago

No comment that I’ve seen seems to acknowledge rejection of carrying a phone around. In order for the data to be uncompromised there would need to be a mandate to carry the phone everywhere. If not participating meant being cast out of society, some people might be okay with that. How should we handle it?

throwaway97777 7y ago

Well, buckle up folks. Android's GLS service has an absolute insane data ingestion pipeline consisting of sensor fusion from GPS, Wifi, accelerometer, barometric data, and cell tower locations. It's accurate to within meters, can locate you inside buildings, can count your footsteps, and even knows what floor you've been on. It's been used by Google to tune its indoor WiFi maps and improve location accuracy for years. Anyone who has high location accuracy mode turned on and has Google Play Services has already been unwittingly uploading "anonymized" location data multiple times an hour for literally years. In many cases such anonymized data is accurate to within a meter and contains accelerometer data that can literally count your footsteps and determine if you are walking, running, riding in a car, etc. Anonymized GLS data is what informs traffic congestion and many other "non scary" services. Google believes the negotiation of a 7-day expiration of randomized UID is sufficient anonymization to meet the legal definition in all of its markets. It might be right about the legal definition. It's wrong if it believes it actually anonymizes data. Google believes a popup notifying that high accuracy mode may upload "anonymized usage data" to Google's services constitutes informed consent according to GDPR. I think the EU would disagree if they knew the technical capabilities of Google's infrastructure. Google's internal privacy review system believes that they are safeguarding the privacy of its users. Their model does not take into account NSLs or interference from intelligence agencies. And it absolutely did not foresee this. The surveillance dystopia is here, folks, and your Android phone won't do anything noticeably different. They'll flip some switches in their ingestion pipeline and have an insanely powerful draconian surveillance network instantly. It's over.

eggie 7y ago
A more hopeful interpretation. This can be a tool for good. It's not necessary for the state to have access. We already have access. This capability is precisely what we need to generate data that can be used to resolve this crisis and allow us to safely exit from quarantine. The GDPR allows individuals to request access to their own data. They can voluntarily share this with their health systems, communities, and governments, such as when testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. This doesn't have to be open-ended, just for recent data that could help track transmission and find other contacts. On the flip side, individuals who don't know if they're carriers can plug their own data into a system that relates it with the movements of affected people and warns them if they need to get tested.

woodson 7y ago

Already happening in Austria: (link in German) https://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/ausgangsbeschraenkung-a1-liefert-bewegungsprofile-an-regierung/400783565 https://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/ausgangsbeschraenkung-a1-l...

lorenzhs 7y ago
That sounds rather like the traffic feature of Google/Apple Maps than what's discussed in the comments here. The article you linked is very clear that it's aggregated and only segments with at least 20 people on them are reported. If I understand the Hill article correctly, the US discussion is about the same kind of data ('An unnamed OSTP official told The Washington Post that they were “encouraged by American technology companies looking to leverage, aggregate, anonymized data to glean key insights for COVID-19 modeling efforts.”'), yet the majority of the comments seem to be assuming that it's about tracking individuals' locations to enable contact tracing. I don't get that impression from the Hill article at all. What's actually being proposed, while not unproblematic, sounds rather more palatable than the authoritarian nightmare that's being discussed here.
tastroder 7y ago
Germany as well now https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/wie-breitet-sich-das-coronavirus-aus-rki-bekommt-handydaten-von-deutscher-telekom/25655144.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/wie-breitet-sich-das-coro...

cnxsoft 7y ago

I read an article the other day explaining that's one of the methods South Korea used to control the spread of the virus.

pgnas 7y ago

Never let a crisis go to waste.

Arnt 7y ago

Meanwhile in Taiwan: in 2004 the authorities planned how to respond to this crisis, and got the necessary rights. Then they spent 15 years not abusing these rights, and now used them effectively (including phone data). The middle part is important there, the one about "15".

dTal 7y ago

What good is phone data if they don't even administer sufficient virus tests? They should first tackle the low-hanging fruit that doesn't involve mass surveillance, to show good intentions, before being allowed access to such dangerous data.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

xfitm3 7y ago

Nope. No fucking way. Whatever temporary powers granted are akin to a drug dealers 'first one is free'.

gioele 7y ago

Another sad +1: Italy is already using phone location data to track people and measure the effectiveness of the quarantine: https://archive.is/6xXNu https://archive.is/6xXNu (archived from https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_marzo_17/coronavirus-cosi-lombardia-controlla-movimenti-via-cellulare-75c3d226-6897-11ea-9725-c592292e4a85.shtml?refresh_ce-cp https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_marzo_17/coronavirus-cos...)

kchoudhu 7y ago

Yeah, ok: fuck off. Send someone to interview subjects of interest like everyone else.

tsukurimashou 7y ago

Even if the US had real-time data about every citizen movement, what would they do with it, they cannot move huge populations of people like China can

cbayram 7y ago
Potentially narrow down and identify asymptomatic spreaders of the virus in early forming geo clusters. This information could lead to more effective quarantine measures early on or post containment to avoid further outbreak eruptions.

fyp 7y ago

It would be so useful if I got a notification if I happen to have crossed paths with a person who later turned out to be infected so I can get tested too. This will preempt so many asymptotic transmissions. Such apps are already deployed in china: https://youtu.be/YfsdJGj3-jM?t=303 https://youtu.be/YfsdJGj3-jM?t=303 We don't trust the government but what if it's just a private company who does it? Google already has your location info: https://www.google.com/maps/timeline https://www.google.com/maps/timeline They are definitely already using the information in aggregate to provide traffic jam info. Hell I am sure facebook already does this for suggesting friends too. On the balance of privacy vs social good, I don't think there's even much slippery slope left to protect.

forkexec 7y ago

Is this going to be the excuse to roll tanks and missiles down the street and suspend elections too?

andrewseanryan 7y ago

Well... it worked in South Korea. It would have to be temporary and only for positive tests.

34679 7y ago

"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." Milton Friedman

908087 7y ago

As soon as Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Brin, Page, Pichai, and anyone on the government end who supports this program start sharing their locations with us in real time, we can discuss the possibility of letting them do this.

cbayram 7y ago

We are in a pandemic and this won’t be the last. Gov’ts and society are scrambling to contain the virus, save lives, economy and society. Pandemics sow seeds of mistrust among neighbors, xenophobia and society starts falling apart. Be kind, compassionate and constructive if you can help it. This is about self-preservation. If there was ever a case for “move fast, break things”, this is it. Your location data is already whored out to target you in every which way. We have tremendous data and tech capabilities. We should absolutely use them to effectively track and quarantine the contagion. For me the threat of terrorism and Patriot act was bullshit reason to erode our rights and liberties, but this is different. We should absolutely revisit these encroachments on privacy by out gov’t in a post-mortem and legislate accordingly. When it comes to gov’t, I share a healthy dosage of mistrust. This is one of the reasons I support the second amendment. But remember that the gov’t are of the people and for the people. It is THE institution to defend our individual selves against threats we can’t individually battle. As Michael Lewis puts it, we have got to stop gutting the gov’t due to reactionary fear-mongering and mistrust. We are only robbing ourselves and our children of their future. This is a reason to feel patriotic for me.

thehoomanist 7y ago

No. “But anonymizing... and we should use data to...” No.

tilolebo 7y ago

I have just read a German article explaining that Deutsche Telekom provided 5 GB of location data to the Robert Koch Institute. The data will be analyzed to understand the mobility of German residents. So it's not real time tracking but it's still tracking.

fatjokes 7y ago

The conversation is dominated by the fear of gov't abuse. So few point to how successfully South Korea has leveraged their vast surveillance infrastructure to tackle this problem while maintaining a vibrant democracy. (When's the last time the US actually imprisoned a leader? Or even held a powerful person to account without pardon?) The lack of trust in the US is really disappointing. Americans are so proud of its democracy---yet consistently hate and distrust the government. I fear at the end of all of this, it'll be like the line at the end of The Big Short: "They will be blaming immigrants and poor people."

_underfl0w_ 7y ago
> When's the last time the US actually imprisoned a leader? Or even held a powerful person to account without pardon? Chelsea Manning comes to mind, and that's just in the past month.
catalogia 7y ago
Some of the things you're saying seem contradictory (American politicians are rarely imprisoned for their crimes, therefore Americans should be more trusting of their government? That seems completely backward) so forgive me if I've misunderstood you completely. With that said... > "The conversation is dominated by the fear of gov't abuse. So few point to how successfully South Korea has leveraged their vast surveillance infrastructure to tackle this problem while maintaining a vibrant democracy. (When's the last time the US actually imprisoned a leader? Or even held a powerful person to account without pardon?)" South Korea isn't all sunshine and roses either. They had numerous military coupes in post-war half of the 20th century. One of their dictators was sentenced to death for massacring hundreds of pro-democracy protestors, but was then pardoned for this. Things might not be so bad in South Korea currently, but the nastier stuff is still in living memory today. South Koreans would be wise to tread carefully when empowering their government. I think the cautious attitude modern Germans have towards these matters is a good approach: "Never again" rather than "It could never happen again." As for the attitudes of Americans, no organization nor individual is entitled to trust; trust must be earned. Insofar as Americans don't trust their government, it's because their government hasn't earned their trust. On the contrary, the American government has frequently violated whatever little trust anybody has in it. Modern America may not have any recent military dictatorships like South Korea, but there is nevertheless a lot of disturbing unpleasantness in recent history.

jriot 7y ago

Could we all just not carry our phones everywhere we go.

lousken 7y ago

In czech republic we already started doing this today [0] Of course, it requires permission from the infected person [0] http://www.apms.cz/novinky/mobilni-operatori-pomahaji-trasovat-polohu-nakazeneho-pouze-s-jeho-vyslovnym-souhlasem http://www.apms.cz/novinky/mobilni-operatori-pomahaji-trasov...

qweknvds 7y ago

Thank you liberals for blowing this "disease" way up beyond proportion and inviting the fascists over for your tea party! You can all go jump off the bridge now!

qweknvds 7y ago

Everyone should immediately go buy a firearm right now. It's your civic duty to defend against tyranny.

dminzi 7y ago

I’m young and thus likely naive. But, is it not possible for a company like Mozilla to make a small tracking app that users opt in for. Then, they get rid of this when it is all over. I say Mozilla because, from what I understand, it is very privacy orientated, but any trustable company would do (ie not google, amazon, or Facebook).