12 ms·

Can't wait to be tracked by tech developed by a governmental team in the name of safety. Opensource or not a leash is a leash.

ivanonymous 7y ago
I'm curious as a non-expert what's specifically worrying about their privacy model? My intuition is that rapid adoption of a relatively transparent privacy-preseving option could preempt more heavy-handed approaches to what could be a very valuable public health intervention.
- tomcooks 7y ago
  I'd agree if remote tracking was the only option, and if there was a guaranteed policy against public backslash towards those that don't comply out of privacy reasons (which would skyrocket in a health hazard emergency). These privacy exceptions all affected goverments are talking about (Italy being a great example, viz. Veneto region governor asking for a change in privacy laws the other day) are not going to magically disappear once the coast is clear, just like post 9/11 emergency laws still being used in the US. I believe there are other ways to help people and that, if you are a government that claims having to resort to remote control its popoulation, maybe your power is either insufficient for your secret expansion goals or you're an inefficient populist. Every (western) government publicly hates the Chinese government but they do seem to have wet dreams about the population control bit, especially when backed by corporations.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Exactly. People are decrying this because it gives governments capabilities, as if decrying its existence changes that capability model or implies that in the absence of this tool and in a state of emergency, governments wouldn't be stuck trying to accomplish the same goals this tool enables using cruder methods that would be more intrusive to people's lives. It's like hating gunpowder exists because people can make bullets and fight wars with it.
WaylonKenning 7y ago
We all carry around a radio that broadcasts our location. I guess we'll end up switching off Bluetooth except to known good devices, or when we intentionally want to discover what's around us.
- dheera 7y ago
  I don't know, I'd probably turn mine on just so that I can get notified if I am within proximity of a high infection risk stranger. I would love to have that kind of notification. Just for now. Uninstall when the pandemic clears.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    I can imagine something like that could lead to people abusing, beating up or killing the infected. It might sound far-fetched, but this was happening in Kenya quite recently.
dehrmann 7y ago
You sound like an American or German. Singaporeans have more trust of their government.
- tomcooks 7y ago
  I believe you are very, very, very wrong on all 3 assumptions my friend.
mshroyer 7y ago
This is needlessly cynical. TraceTogether uses client-side logging so as to leave data in the hands of the users up until it's actually needed for contact tracing. Would you suggest that we not have public health departments engage in contact tracing at all to combat the pandemic? If so, I'm not sure what to tell you. Otherwise, apps may go a long way to improve the speed and accuracy of contact tracing. Here in the US, I'd much rather use a protocol like TraceTogether's Bluetrace that goes out of its way to preserve privacy, than adopt an actually-privacy-violating centralized approach where the government simply gathers everyone's location data and processes it centrally (Israel's approach, for example).
- Proziam 7y ago
  > Would you suggest that we not have public health departments engage in contact tracing at all to combat the pandemic? If so, I'm not sure what to tell you. If the result is (another) permanent loss of privacy and freedom akin to the PATRIOT act, then yes. Technology has immense power to do good for people, but only if those who deploy it do so ethically. How many governments around the world can we honestly predict to do so?
  - throwanem 7y ago
    I'm curious how many people who now say "give me privacy or give me death!" will change their tune in a hurry once they are themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, in real danger of dying. I regret that - assuming my own ongoing case of COVID-19 resolves without fatal complication - I'm quite likely, I think, to have that curiosity satisfied. I regret it because this isn't a cause for change of perspective which I would wish on anyone. But everything I'm seeing suggests it's a cause for change of perspective that many millions of people are going to have.
    - Proziam 7y ago
      My hope is that people don't lose sight of the long term in spite of the short term suffering we may experience. You can only surrender your rights once, the effects of losing those rights will last forever. How many movements would have been impossible if a local government could spy on everyone to break it up before it even begins? I'm thankful we didn't have the same technology we have now during the civil rights movement, for example. I sincerely hope for your swift recovery.
pythonaut_16 7y ago
This is much better than tracking people via facial and video recognition captured with near-omnipresent camera feeds. This is tracking signals that an optional device optionally broadcasts (and has for years). You can easily avoid this tracking by not having your phone broadcast bluetooth or by not carrying a phone. Not to mention any number of actors could have already been tracking this signal for years. It's the nature of how bluetooth devices broadcast their presence.
- freeflight 7y ago
  > This is much better than tracking people via facial and video recognition captured with near-omnipresent camera feeds. This would be a point if near-omnipresent camera feeds were reduced in favor of using this. But the much more likely outcome is that this will only end up increasing overall surveillance capabilities, not reign them in.
- zajio1am 7y ago
  > You can easily avoid this tracking by not having your phone broadcast bluetooth or by not carrying a phone. Until government makes it mandatory.
- monadic2 7y ago
  > This is much better than tracking people via facial and video recognition captured with near-omnipresent camera feeds. Yea, but it's much worse than non-shitty suggestions. Obviously if you pick the shittiest option anything will look good.
sicktime 7y ago
Can't wait to die from a new virus because of insulated Silicon Valley libertarian ideals.
joeyspn 7y ago
If you believe you aren't being or can't be tracked already then you live in oblivion...
raynr 7y ago
"Never let a serious crisis go to waste" - Rahm Emanuel. I agree with this and your sentiment, but I think it is misplaced in this instance. As I understand it, the TraceTogether app collects (and stores locally), information on other users running the TraceTogether app nearby. If our government's contact tracers contact us, we can provide the information, and it can help in contact tracing. This seems to me to be at or near the minimum amount of information collection necessary to fulfil the function. Assuming voluntary widespread adoption, it is useful, and can be uninstalled at any time once the crisis blows over.
- samstave 7y ago
  Shoot, I didnt realize that quote was attibuted to Rahm. I fucking hate that guy. Also - its really disturbing that a few years ago, Apple created an update where you cant turn off wifi or bluetooth - you can now only "pause it" But there has not been a look into proving that it is actually OFF when your little soft icon is grey...
  - avianlyric 7y ago
    You can still turn it off by heading to settings and turning it off there (both WiFi and Bluetooth). It turns the functionality off completely, and stays off until you manually turn it back on. In control centre it only partially turns off. But that’s not unreasonable as many people don’t understand how many feature rely on Bluetooth. They would probably get annoyed when the stop working, just because they wanted to quickly disconnect some headphones. Check out the bottom of this page for more: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208086 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208086
    - samstave 7y ago
      I understand that, but I still dont trust it. I want an app that tells me EVERYTHING that my phones radios are doing. ALL of them, and ALL the data.
      - avianlyric 7y ago
oinkl 7y ago
https://tracetogether.zendesk.com/hc/en-sg/articles/360043735693-What-data-is-collected-Are-you-able-to-see-my-personal-data- https://tracetogether.zendesk.com/hc/en-sg/articles/36004373... https://www.tracetogether.gov.sg/common/privacystatement https://www.tracetogether.gov.sg/common/privacystatement What data is collected? Are you able to see my personal data? The only data that we collect is your mobile number, so that MOH can contact you more quickly if you were in close proximity to a COVID-19 case. With your consent, TraceTogether exchanges Bluetooth proximity data with nearby phones running the same app. However, this data is anonymised and encrypted, and does not reveal your identity or the other person's identity. Also, this data is stored only on the user’s phone. Should MOH need the data for contact tracing, they will seek your consent to share it with them.
- monadic2 7y ago
  > The only data that we collect is your mobile number, That's the definition of PII and will eventually be abused for purposes other than emergency contact.
- shanev 7y ago
  There are several teams working on better privacy preserving functionality: https://github.com/covid-apps-tracker/tracing-apps https://github.com/covid-apps-tracker/tracing-apps. What would be useful is a common standard for Bluetooth transmission so all these apps could talk to each other.
sbmthakur 7y ago
Safety is indeed far more important for some people than privacy and liberty.

ivanonymous 7y ago

I'm curious as a non-expert what's specifically worrying about their privacy model? My intuition is that rapid adoption of a relatively transparent privacy-preseving option could preempt more heavy-handed approaches to what could be a very valuable public health intervention.

tomcooks 7y ago
I'd agree if remote tracking was the only option, and if there was a guaranteed policy against public backslash towards those that don't comply out of privacy reasons (which would skyrocket in a health hazard emergency). These privacy exceptions all affected goverments are talking about (Italy being a great example, viz. Veneto region governor asking for a change in privacy laws the other day) are not going to magically disappear once the coast is clear, just like post 9/11 emergency laws still being used in the US. I believe there are other ways to help people and that, if you are a government that claims having to resort to remote control its popoulation, maybe your power is either insufficient for your secret expansion goals or you're an inefficient populist. Every (western) government publicly hates the Chinese government but they do seem to have wet dreams about the population control bit, especially when backed by corporations.
shadowgovt 7y ago
Exactly. People are decrying this because it gives governments capabilities, as if decrying its existence changes that capability model or implies that in the absence of this tool and in a state of emergency, governments wouldn't be stuck trying to accomplish the same goals this tool enables using cruder methods that would be more intrusive to people's lives. It's like hating gunpowder exists because people can make bullets and fight wars with it.

WaylonKenning 7y ago

We all carry around a radio that broadcasts our location. I guess we'll end up switching off Bluetooth except to known good devices, or when we intentionally want to discover what's around us.

dheera 7y ago
I don't know, I'd probably turn mine on just so that I can get notified if I am within proximity of a high infection risk stranger. I would love to have that kind of notification. Just for now. Uninstall when the pandemic clears.
- GordonS 7y ago
  I can imagine something like that could lead to people abusing, beating up or killing the infected. It might sound far-fetched, but this was happening in Kenya quite recently.

dehrmann 7y ago

You sound like an American or German. Singaporeans have more trust of their government.

tomcooks 7y ago
I believe you are very, very, very wrong on all 3 assumptions my friend.

mshroyer 7y ago

This is needlessly cynical. TraceTogether uses client-side logging so as to leave data in the hands of the users up until it's actually needed for contact tracing. Would you suggest that we not have public health departments engage in contact tracing at all to combat the pandemic? If so, I'm not sure what to tell you. Otherwise, apps may go a long way to improve the speed and accuracy of contact tracing. Here in the US, I'd much rather use a protocol like TraceTogether's Bluetrace that goes out of its way to preserve privacy, than adopt an actually-privacy-violating centralized approach where the government simply gathers everyone's location data and processes it centrally (Israel's approach, for example).

Proziam 7y ago
> Would you suggest that we not have public health departments engage in contact tracing at all to combat the pandemic? If so, I'm not sure what to tell you. If the result is (another) permanent loss of privacy and freedom akin to the PATRIOT act, then yes. Technology has immense power to do good for people, but only if those who deploy it do so ethically. How many governments around the world can we honestly predict to do so?
- throwanem 7y ago
  I'm curious how many people who now say "give me privacy or give me death!" will change their tune in a hurry once they are themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, in real danger of dying. I regret that - assuming my own ongoing case of COVID-19 resolves without fatal complication - I'm quite likely, I think, to have that curiosity satisfied. I regret it because this isn't a cause for change of perspective which I would wish on anyone. But everything I'm seeing suggests it's a cause for change of perspective that many millions of people are going to have.
  - Proziam 7y ago
    My hope is that people don't lose sight of the long term in spite of the short term suffering we may experience. You can only surrender your rights once, the effects of losing those rights will last forever. How many movements would have been impossible if a local government could spy on everyone to break it up before it even begins? I'm thankful we didn't have the same technology we have now during the civil rights movement, for example. I sincerely hope for your swift recovery.

pythonaut_16 7y ago

This is much better than tracking people via facial and video recognition captured with near-omnipresent camera feeds. This is tracking signals that an optional device optionally broadcasts (and has for years). You can easily avoid this tracking by not having your phone broadcast bluetooth or by not carrying a phone. Not to mention any number of actors could have already been tracking this signal for years. It's the nature of how bluetooth devices broadcast their presence.

freeflight 7y ago
> This is much better than tracking people via facial and video recognition captured with near-omnipresent camera feeds. This would be a point if near-omnipresent camera feeds were reduced in favor of using this. But the much more likely outcome is that this will only end up increasing overall surveillance capabilities, not reign them in.
zajio1am 7y ago
> You can easily avoid this tracking by not having your phone broadcast bluetooth or by not carrying a phone. Until government makes it mandatory.
monadic2 7y ago
> This is much better than tracking people via facial and video recognition captured with near-omnipresent camera feeds. Yea, but it's much worse than non-shitty suggestions. Obviously if you pick the shittiest option anything will look good.

sicktime 7y ago

Can't wait to die from a new virus because of insulated Silicon Valley libertarian ideals.

joeyspn 7y ago

If you believe you aren't being or can't be tracked already then you live in oblivion...

raynr 7y ago

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste" - Rahm Emanuel. I agree with this and your sentiment, but I think it is misplaced in this instance. As I understand it, the TraceTogether app collects (and stores locally), information on other users running the TraceTogether app nearby. If our government's contact tracers contact us, we can provide the information, and it can help in contact tracing. This seems to me to be at or near the minimum amount of information collection necessary to fulfil the function. Assuming voluntary widespread adoption, it is useful, and can be uninstalled at any time once the crisis blows over.

samstave 7y ago
Shoot, I didnt realize that quote was attibuted to Rahm. I fucking hate that guy. Also - its really disturbing that a few years ago, Apple created an update where you cant turn off wifi or bluetooth - you can now only "pause it" But there has not been a look into proving that it is actually OFF when your little soft icon is grey...
- avianlyric 7y ago
  You can still turn it off by heading to settings and turning it off there (both WiFi and Bluetooth). It turns the functionality off completely, and stays off until you manually turn it back on. In control centre it only partially turns off. But that’s not unreasonable as many people don’t understand how many feature rely on Bluetooth. They would probably get annoyed when the stop working, just because they wanted to quickly disconnect some headphones. Check out the bottom of this page for more: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208086 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208086
  - samstave 7y ago
    I understand that, but I still dont trust it. I want an app that tells me EVERYTHING that my phones radios are doing. ALL of them, and ALL the data.
    - avianlyric 7y ago

oinkl 7y ago

https://tracetogether.zendesk.com/hc/en-sg/articles/360043735693-What-data-is-collected-Are-you-able-to-see-my-personal-data- https://tracetogether.zendesk.com/hc/en-sg/articles/36004373... https://www.tracetogether.gov.sg/common/privacystatement https://www.tracetogether.gov.sg/common/privacystatement What data is collected? Are you able to see my personal data? The only data that we collect is your mobile number, so that MOH can contact you more quickly if you were in close proximity to a COVID-19 case. With your consent, TraceTogether exchanges Bluetooth proximity data with nearby phones running the same app. However, this data is anonymised and encrypted, and does not reveal your identity or the other person's identity. Also, this data is stored only on the user’s phone. Should MOH need the data for contact tracing, they will seek your consent to share it with them.

monadic2 7y ago
> The only data that we collect is your mobile number, That's the definition of PII and will eventually be abused for purposes other than emergency contact.
shanev 7y ago
There are several teams working on better privacy preserving functionality: https://github.com/covid-apps-tracker/tracing-apps https://github.com/covid-apps-tracker/tracing-apps. What would be useful is a common standard for Bluetooth transmission so all these apps could talk to each other.

sbmthakur 7y ago

Safety is indeed far more important for some people than privacy and liberty.