Tracking Apps: All Buttoned Up?
May 15, 2020
The United Kingdom has many Big Brother-esque monitoring techniques to keep track of its citizens. Unlike Orwell’s Big Brother where citizens were killed for rebelling, UK residents shout their objections when they have been wronged. The Register shares how a group of “Academics Demand Answers Over Potential Data Time bomb Ticking Inside New UK Contact-Tracing App.”
One hundred seventy-three academics have called out the National Health Service for their COVID-19 contact-tracing app, because it is potentially dangerous. The app does the following:
“Due for release in the coming weeks, NHSX’s contact-tracing app will be the official way that everyone’s contacts with COVID-19-positive people will be tracked. The app will emit an electronic ID from your phone and receive the IDs of other phones with the app installed. If someone develops the coronavirus, everyone who came into contact with that person (i.e. their app came close enough for their ID to be logged by others) will receive an alert.”
The app would track and store people infected with COVID-19 in a centralized, government-controlled database and it is possible the data would not be anonymous. The fear is that the database could be hacked, then people’s information would be stolen or sold. The UK government could also lose more trust with their citizens.
Nothing like a pandemic to make life more secure and “open”?
Whitney Grace, May 15, 2020
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