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Longtime HN lurker here, finally something I can chime in on, as I was involved with the development of the Covid19 tracing app for my country. > limited depl

Longtime HN lurker here, finally something I can chime in on, as I was involved with the development of the Covid19 tracing app for my country. > limited deployment – any technology requires a sufficiently high number of users; Sure, yes, that's true for anything. > security and privacy concerns – many weaknesses and privacy leakages are documented I am yet to hear of any such cases, when it comes to tracing apps based on the google/apple tracing API. > lack of reliability – BLE-based apps are prone to errors due to the usage of signal-strength measure- ments to infer contacts; We did extensive testing and the only issues we found was that BLE couldn't tell distance very accurately, but still, we could, with high enough confidence, tell that two phones were within 5m of each other or so. There was also the issue of BLE signal going through walls, which meant you might get a false positive with a neighbor, by placing your phone next to a wall, but that's really an edge case. > data governance – there exists a double standard in governing users’ location data, with fine-grained tracking of device location available only to private companies such as Google or Apple Plain false. Apps based on the API do not have users location data, only proximity data and even that is only stored on the users device and never transmitted elsewhere. GApple covid19 tracing api is based on the DP-3T tracing protocol, the (very human readable) whitepaper of which can be read here: https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%20Paper.pdf https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%... There was a lot of disinformation regarding contact tracing apps, both from tin-foil hat wearers, incompetent (or maybe corrupt?) state officials as well as competing, centralized (and actually privacy-breaching) solutions. I can still see a lot of this going around.

hansel_der 5y ago
> I am yet to hear of any such cases, when it comes to tracing apps based on the google/apple tracing API. data leaks in the api itself will come to light, rest assured. but as you said, the problems with everyting besides the vendor-api have already caused a lot of privacy havoc. > ou might get a false positive with a neighbor, by placing your phone next to a wall, but that's really an edge case. in a literal sense; yes :D but let me assure you that ppl putting their phone near a wall is absolutely not uncommon. > Plain false. Apps based on the API do not have users location data again you seem to willfully misconstrue the allegation. let me tell you that just because the tracing app itself does not have precise location data, the problem of creating yet another record on your phone, attesting your behaviour, is not going away. i take it you are not (yet?) critical of privacy implications of your $dayjob, but try to respect the concerns of ppl that are unilaterly affected by them.
- ABoredBirb 5y ago
  You ought to read the whitepaper I linked. I absolutely take privacy seriously in both my job and my private life. What is kept on your phone in the DT3P/Gapple scenario is neither location data nor even a list of "contacts". What it does keep is a list of temporary (15 minutes or less) ids for the last two weeks - this does not reveal how many people youve been in contact with, much less who. It is as privacy respecting as it gets.

hansel_der 5y ago

> I am yet to hear of any such cases, when it comes to tracing apps based on the google/apple tracing API. data leaks in the api itself will come to light, rest assured. but as you said, the problems with everyting besides the vendor-api have already caused a lot of privacy havoc. > ou might get a false positive with a neighbor, by placing your phone next to a wall, but that's really an edge case. in a literal sense; yes :D but let me assure you that ppl putting their phone near a wall is absolutely not uncommon. > Plain false. Apps based on the API do not have users location data again you seem to willfully misconstrue the allegation. let me tell you that just because the tracing app itself does not have precise location data, the problem of creating yet another record on your phone, attesting your behaviour, is not going away. i take it you are not (yet?) critical of privacy implications of your $dayjob, but try to respect the concerns of ppl that are unilaterly affected by them.

ABoredBirb 5y ago
You ought to read the whitepaper I linked. I absolutely take privacy seriously in both my job and my private life. What is kept on your phone in the DT3P/Gapple scenario is neither location data nor even a list of "contacts". What it does keep is a list of temporary (15 minutes or less) ids for the last two weeks - this does not reveal how many people youve been in contact with, much less who. It is as privacy respecting as it gets.