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If I go outside, I would like to have an app that does this on my phone. My "right to privacy" isn't worth putting other peoples' health at considerable risk fo

If I go outside, I would like to have an app that does this on my phone. My "right to privacy" isn't worth putting other peoples' health at considerable risk for. There isn't even a scenario I could imagine where one of these apps would do something that I would consider a severe infringement of my privacy. A few million lives may ultimately hang in the balance, so there ought to be a very compelling argument against not putting these apps into practice and getting ahead of coronavirus.

gargs 7y ago
Some would argue that willfully going outside while you’re infected is the more risky and irresponsible behavior on your part.
- jfoster 7y ago
  The whole idea is that the app would alert you if you may be infected so that you don't go out. The problem is that sometimes people who don't yet know they are infected have contact with other people before anyone in the story finds out that they are infected. The apps allow the communication to happen: 1. Even if the people who had contact don't know each other. 2. Faster. That's how we get ahead of the virus.
  - dchyrdvh 7y ago
    Is this all this tracking achieves? I personally assume that I'm infected until proven otherwise. Even if proven, I can get infected a day later. I don't need a tracker to tell me this.
  - gargs 7y ago
    Contact tracing is a precursor to testing. An app flagging you as a potential positive doesn’t mean that you self-quarantine for x days, rather it means that you get tested asap. And this has to happen every time you get flagged. Otherwise there’s just no point in using those apps. Eventually the entire neighborhood would be flagged. Not sure what the downvote is for.
mrfusion 7y ago
The US is predicting 60k deaths. Millions is quite an exaggeration. Would you still give up your privacy to save a few thousand lives?
- andruby 7y ago
  60k deaths in the US on a population of 330M, guess how much that would mean for the world? 7700M/330M * 60K = 1.4M. OP is absolutely right. Countries with lower standard of healthcare than the US will have a higher death rate.
  - graeme 7y ago
    It’s also surely an undercount in the US. We’ll get accurate numbers when all cause mortality comes out. In Europe the totals were underestimated by a factor of two in most countries. For example, in NYC, this chart shows roughly 5500 excess deaths on april 4th. Whereas on that day nyc had only counted 3500 coronavirus deaths. https://mobile.twitter.com/paulg/status/1248905714124414976/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/paulg/status/1248905714124414976/...
  - Zenbit_UX 7y ago
    The US is an extreme example, their news stations were downplaying it and calling it a hoax, they didn't follow social distancing in most places until it was too late, they were late to the "this is not the flu" party by a month and grossly incompetent leadership combined with the CDC literally lying to its people === the perfect storm. Further, those numbers are based on NYC hospitals being completely overwhelmed which sky rocketed the death rate. If a country can flatten their curve what is happening in New York doesn't have to happen again.
    - acdha 7y ago
      “Fox and OAN” are not the same as “news stations”. If you got your news anywhere else this was reported accurately by the middle of January[1] and there were plenty of experts calling for social distancing by February. The decision to politicize medicine will go down in history’s list of bad calls but it’s a function of the right-wing propaganda network, not the news media or public health experts. 1. Yes, there was that dweeb with the NYT opinion piece saying it wasn’t worse than the flu. There’s a reason that ran in the opinion section.
epistasis 7y ago
If you are concerned about this, the app is the least of your worries because BLE and MAC addresses are already being used to track your movements, for commercial purposes. For example inside stores. Additionally, many many apps silently gather and sell this data, without your knowledge, and with "consent" being ignored or being relegated to privacy statements that are too vague to understand that they are doing this. I really hope that if people are concerned at all in any way about the tracking app mentioned here that they also learn that such tracking is being used extensively in industry right now. I'm surprised how few people on HN seem to know this. If any audience should know and warn our friends and neighbors, it's the audience at HN.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  So we get the reverse of the reasonable behavior. People - and I mean tech people, not Joes and Janes Random - freak out over using movement tracking to fight a pandemic, while they willingly accept the same tech being used by advertisers. It's like people want to suffer.
jstanley 7y ago
Conversely, you could argue that your "right to health" isn't worth putting other people's privacy at considerable risk for.
- jfoster 7y ago
  You have no privacy to protect if you are not alive.
leetcrew 7y ago
by all means, you are free to make this tradeoff for yourself. but you don't get to decide what other people's privacy should be worth to them. > There isn't even a scenario I could imagine where one of these apps would do something that I would consider a severe infringement of my privacy. do you live in the united states? there have been quite a few privacy fiascos in the last couple decades that the general public found unimaginable until they were exposed.

gargs 7y ago

Some would argue that willfully going outside while you’re infected is the more risky and irresponsible behavior on your part.

jfoster 7y ago
The whole idea is that the app would alert you if you may be infected so that you don't go out. The problem is that sometimes people who don't yet know they are infected have contact with other people before anyone in the story finds out that they are infected. The apps allow the communication to happen: 1. Even if the people who had contact don't know each other. 2. Faster. That's how we get ahead of the virus.
- dchyrdvh 7y ago
  Is this all this tracking achieves? I personally assume that I'm infected until proven otherwise. Even if proven, I can get infected a day later. I don't need a tracker to tell me this.
- gargs 7y ago
  Contact tracing is a precursor to testing. An app flagging you as a potential positive doesn’t mean that you self-quarantine for x days, rather it means that you get tested asap. And this has to happen every time you get flagged. Otherwise there’s just no point in using those apps. Eventually the entire neighborhood would be flagged. Not sure what the downvote is for.

mrfusion 7y ago

The US is predicting 60k deaths. Millions is quite an exaggeration. Would you still give up your privacy to save a few thousand lives?

andruby 7y ago
60k deaths in the US on a population of 330M, guess how much that would mean for the world? 7700M/330M * 60K = 1.4M. OP is absolutely right. Countries with lower standard of healthcare than the US will have a higher death rate.
- graeme 7y ago
  It’s also surely an undercount in the US. We’ll get accurate numbers when all cause mortality comes out. In Europe the totals were underestimated by a factor of two in most countries. For example, in NYC, this chart shows roughly 5500 excess deaths on april 4th. Whereas on that day nyc had only counted 3500 coronavirus deaths. https://mobile.twitter.com/paulg/status/1248905714124414976/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/paulg/status/1248905714124414976/...
- Zenbit_UX 7y ago
  The US is an extreme example, their news stations were downplaying it and calling it a hoax, they didn't follow social distancing in most places until it was too late, they were late to the "this is not the flu" party by a month and grossly incompetent leadership combined with the CDC literally lying to its people === the perfect storm. Further, those numbers are based on NYC hospitals being completely overwhelmed which sky rocketed the death rate. If a country can flatten their curve what is happening in New York doesn't have to happen again.
  - acdha 7y ago
    “Fox and OAN” are not the same as “news stations”. If you got your news anywhere else this was reported accurately by the middle of January[1] and there were plenty of experts calling for social distancing by February. The decision to politicize medicine will go down in history’s list of bad calls but it’s a function of the right-wing propaganda network, not the news media or public health experts. 1. Yes, there was that dweeb with the NYT opinion piece saying it wasn’t worse than the flu. There’s a reason that ran in the opinion section.

epistasis 7y ago

If you are concerned about this, the app is the least of your worries because BLE and MAC addresses are already being used to track your movements, for commercial purposes. For example inside stores. Additionally, many many apps silently gather and sell this data, without your knowledge, and with "consent" being ignored or being relegated to privacy statements that are too vague to understand that they are doing this. I really hope that if people are concerned at all in any way about the tracking app mentioned here that they also learn that such tracking is being used extensively in industry right now. I'm surprised how few people on HN seem to know this. If any audience should know and warn our friends and neighbors, it's the audience at HN.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
So we get the reverse of the reasonable behavior. People - and I mean tech people, not Joes and Janes Random - freak out over using movement tracking to fight a pandemic, while they willingly accept the same tech being used by advertisers. It's like people want to suffer.

jstanley 7y ago

Conversely, you could argue that your "right to health" isn't worth putting other people's privacy at considerable risk for.

jfoster 7y ago
You have no privacy to protect if you are not alive.

leetcrew 7y ago

by all means, you are free to make this tradeoff for yourself. but you don't get to decide what other people's privacy should be worth to them. > There isn't even a scenario I could imagine where one of these apps would do something that I would consider a severe infringement of my privacy. do you live in the united states? there have been quite a few privacy fiascos in the last couple decades that the general public found unimaginable until they were exposed.