3 ms·

Contact-tracing apps have a trust problem, even if they do protect your privacy

3 points by bookmtn 7y ago

jka 7y ago
This article makes good points about the challenges involved in encouraging widespread application adoption in the face of recent mistrust of tech companies. It will likely require strong and clear messaging from authorities -- backed up by experts and the facts -- to persuade large enough percentages of national populations to adopt contact tracing apps for them to be effective. From what I've seen and read so far, I like the sound of the approach that Covid Watch[1] is taking. It's backed by reputable institutions, is open source (alleviating potential security and trust concerns from software experts), and does include healthcare agencies in the verification loop when cases are reported. Although some technologists might argue for fully decentralized solutions, I'd argue that ensuring that a healthcare agency is in-the-loop is important to avoid accidental and/or malignant false positive self-reports from users. DP-3T[2] also appears trustworthy and has a similar protocol design as far as I understand it. TCN[3] appears to be a good community rallying point for a number of these projects. And be careful of PEPP-PT: it looks potentially troublesome based on this[4] thorough and well-documented investigation. Their data protection policy[5] is archived in case it's useful to refer to in future. This comic[6] is also a really nice introduction to contact tracing protocols and TCN and DP-3T's proposals. [1] - https://www.covid-watch.org/ https://www.covid-watch.org/ [2] - https://github.com/DP-3T/documents https://github.com/DP-3T/documents [3] - https://github.com/TCNCoalition/TCN https://github.com/TCNCoalition/TCN [4] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907499 [5] - https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.pepp-pt.org/datenschutz https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.pepp-pt.org/datens... [6] - https://ncase.me/contact-tracing/ https://ncase.me/contact-tracing/
- jka 7y ago
  For the record, there's also a community-edited research document summarizing various contact tracing technologies: "Unified research on privacy-preserving contact tracing and exposure notification" - https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Kh4_Q_tmyRh0-v452wiul9oQAiTRj8AdZ5vcOJum9Y/edit?ts=5e801c37 https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Kh4_Q_tmyRh0-v452wiul9o...

3 points by bookmtn 7y ago

jka 7y ago

This article makes good points about the challenges involved in encouraging widespread application adoption in the face of recent mistrust of tech companies. It will likely require strong and clear messaging from authorities -- backed up by experts and the facts -- to persuade large enough percentages of national populations to adopt contact tracing apps for them to be effective. From what I've seen and read so far, I like the sound of the approach that Covid Watch[1] is taking. It's backed by reputable institutions, is open source (alleviating potential security and trust concerns from software experts), and does include healthcare agencies in the verification loop when cases are reported. Although some technologists might argue for fully decentralized solutions, I'd argue that ensuring that a healthcare agency is in-the-loop is important to avoid accidental and/or malignant false positive self-reports from users. DP-3T[2] also appears trustworthy and has a similar protocol design as far as I understand it. TCN[3] appears to be a good community rallying point for a number of these projects. And be careful of PEPP-PT: it looks potentially troublesome based on this[4] thorough and well-documented investigation. Their data protection policy[5] is archived in case it's useful to refer to in future. This comic[6] is also a really nice introduction to contact tracing protocols and TCN and DP-3T's proposals. [1] - https://www.covid-watch.org/ https://www.covid-watch.org/ [2] - https://github.com/DP-3T/documents https://github.com/DP-3T/documents [3] - https://github.com/TCNCoalition/TCN https://github.com/TCNCoalition/TCN [4] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907499 [5] - https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.pepp-pt.org/datenschutz https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.pepp-pt.org/datens... [6] - https://ncase.me/contact-tracing/ https://ncase.me/contact-tracing/

jka 7y ago
For the record, there's also a community-edited research document summarizing various contact tracing technologies: "Unified research on privacy-preserving contact tracing and exposure notification" - https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Kh4_Q_tmyRh0-v452wiul9oQAiTRj8AdZ5vcOJum9Y/edit?ts=5e801c37 https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Kh4_Q_tmyRh0-v452wiul9o...