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 Verizo

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.