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The interest in "privacy" around contact tracing seems like a ship that sailed a long time ago to me. Verizon etc all already have this data, and it isn't "pri

by blhack 6y ago

The interest in "privacy" around contact tracing seems like a ship that sailed a long time ago to me. Verizon etc all already have this data, and it isn't "private", and so does uber, lyft, and every other overly-aggressive-permission-askning-app that anybody has ever installed. Privacy is really important: but we lost it all a long long time ago. Maybe saying "well now we can do a good job of contact tracing" is at least some good coming out of that loss of privacy. I just hope we don't end up wasting time trying to make the contact tracing "private" as if by doing otherwise we'd be giving something up that we didn't already give up long ago.

tcd 6y ago
Right. But it's not like they're going to "just" announce that. "Hey everyone - so yeah, we're using all your data you're willingly providing all these apps on your phone, like location, contacts, camera...So thanks for helping...Okay, bye!". But you're right. Every day there is so much information from the spies we carry around with us as they communicate that it'd be unfathomable they're just "ignoring" all of this information. The chances are in some privacy policy it says they can share that data with their "partners" which silently gets back to the government. Just use what you already have, what we already know you have, and if it saves lives then at least it was put to good use.
pat2man 6y ago
This would have a lot more detailed data than Verizon since BLE can calculate distance relatively well. Verizon just knows which tower you are on.
coderthrow 6y ago
> Privacy is really important: but we lost it all a long long time ago. your fatalism is not Truth
danieldk 6y ago
I would think that for contact tracing, you need more than Uber/Lyft/Verizon-level GPS/WiFi triangulation/cell tower triangulation accuracy inside cities. With contact tracing, a proximity of 1 or 20 meters probably makes a large difference. Hence these apps will also have to use Bluetooth Low Energy continuously. https://www.imec-int.com/en/articles/imec-sets-new-benchmark-with-30cm-accurate-and-secure-localization-solution-based-on-bluetooth https://www.imec-int.com/en/articles/imec-sets-new-benchmark...
joosters 6y ago
That's too defeatist: these contact tracing tools will be gathering data that isn't available any other way - otherwise, they'd just be going straight to Verizon etc for what they need. Presumably the bluetooth recording will give much better fidelity/precision about who is close to who, in all conditions (in buildings, in the subway, etc), where simple phone triangulation or GPS won't be accurate enough. That's far more data than the phone companies have on us right now, so it is a good thing that people are considering the privacy issues. Just saying "we've already lost" only makes things worse.
- Eridrus 6y ago
  I don't know how effective this was, but Israel did exactly this: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/israel-passes-emergency-law-to-use-mobile-data-for-covid-19-contact-tracing/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/israel-passes-emergency-la... US public institutions seem frankly sclerotic. The fact that the government has or has not done something provides almost no signal on whether something is possible or not.
driverdan 6y ago
I downvoted you because this is false. This is enhanced individual tracing and will only get worse over time. We should fight tooth and nail against all new anti-privacy schemes like this.
schoen 6y ago
In this context I think you can distinguish between three different kinds of location-related data: * cell tower data * phone GPS data * Bluetooth data about proximity to specific other people For most purposes these are increasing in precision and sensitivity. But also, governments can demand that carriers turn over the first kind, but the second two are generally under some kind of user control according to mobile OS designs. There is no single place that automatically gets this data about every smartphone user. Some of the discussions about privacy for the kind of technology that Apple and Google are working on here are based on observations like * there actually is no existing way that health authorities could get detailed Bluetooth proximity information about all smartphone users * this information is potentially more useful for epidemiological purposes, and also more privacy-sensitive, than just GPS sensor data, because it may more reliably map individual people's interactions with one another (for example, potentially confirming that people were likely in the same room rather than just in the same building) * there are cryptographic concepts that could potentially make this data useful for contact tracing, if users cooperate to a certain extent, in a way that would still make it difficult to obtain or use the data for a different purpose Another way of putting it is that many people looking at this question think that there is an incremental privacy harm from disclosing Bluetooth proximity data (compared to data that is already available), and an incremental benefit to epidemiology from finding a way to process this data for contact tracing purposes (compared to data that is already available).
anigbrowl 6y ago
Since so many companies have it, why not take it back and make it a public commons?

by blhack 6y ago

tcd 6y ago

Right. But it's not like they're going to "just" announce that. "Hey everyone - so yeah, we're using all your data you're willingly providing all these apps on your phone, like location, contacts, camera...So thanks for helping...Okay, bye!". But you're right. Every day there is so much information from the spies we carry around with us as they communicate that it'd be unfathomable they're just "ignoring" all of this information. The chances are in some privacy policy it says they can share that data with their "partners" which silently gets back to the government. Just use what you already have, what we already know you have, and if it saves lives then at least it was put to good use.

pat2man 6y ago

This would have a lot more detailed data than Verizon since BLE can calculate distance relatively well. Verizon just knows which tower you are on.

coderthrow 6y ago

> Privacy is really important: but we lost it all a long long time ago. your fatalism is not Truth

danieldk 6y ago

I would think that for contact tracing, you need more than Uber/Lyft/Verizon-level GPS/WiFi triangulation/cell tower triangulation accuracy inside cities. With contact tracing, a proximity of 1 or 20 meters probably makes a large difference. Hence these apps will also have to use Bluetooth Low Energy continuously. https://www.imec-int.com/en/articles/imec-sets-new-benchmark-with-30cm-accurate-and-secure-localization-solution-based-on-bluetooth https://www.imec-int.com/en/articles/imec-sets-new-benchmark...

joosters 6y ago

That's too defeatist: these contact tracing tools will be gathering data that isn't available any other way - otherwise, they'd just be going straight to Verizon etc for what they need. Presumably the bluetooth recording will give much better fidelity/precision about who is close to who, in all conditions (in buildings, in the subway, etc), where simple phone triangulation or GPS won't be accurate enough. That's far more data than the phone companies have on us right now, so it is a good thing that people are considering the privacy issues. Just saying "we've already lost" only makes things worse.

Eridrus 6y ago
I don't know how effective this was, but Israel did exactly this: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/israel-passes-emergency-law-to-use-mobile-data-for-covid-19-contact-tracing/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/israel-passes-emergency-la... US public institutions seem frankly sclerotic. The fact that the government has or has not done something provides almost no signal on whether something is possible or not.

driverdan 6y ago

I downvoted you because this is false. This is enhanced individual tracing and will only get worse over time. We should fight tooth and nail against all new anti-privacy schemes like this.

schoen 6y ago

In this context I think you can distinguish between three different kinds of location-related data: * cell tower data * phone GPS data * Bluetooth data about proximity to specific other people For most purposes these are increasing in precision and sensitivity. But also, governments can demand that carriers turn over the first kind, but the second two are generally under some kind of user control according to mobile OS designs. There is no single place that automatically gets this data about every smartphone user. Some of the discussions about privacy for the kind of technology that Apple and Google are working on here are based on observations like * there actually is no existing way that health authorities could get detailed Bluetooth proximity information about all smartphone users * this information is potentially more useful for epidemiological purposes, and also more privacy-sensitive, than just GPS sensor data, because it may more reliably map individual people's interactions with one another (for example, potentially confirming that people were likely in the same room rather than just in the same building) * there are cryptographic concepts that could potentially make this data useful for contact tracing, if users cooperate to a certain extent, in a way that would still make it difficult to obtain or use the data for a different purpose Another way of putting it is that many people looking at this question think that there is an incremental privacy harm from disclosing Bluetooth proximity data (compared to data that is already available), and an incremental benefit to epidemiology from finding a way to process this data for contact tracing purposes (compared to data that is already available).

anigbrowl 6y ago

Since so many companies have it, why not take it back and make it a public commons?