[ad_1]
This article is free like all Shifter articles.
If you consider supporting our work, contribute here.
Suddenly, we will return to a state of calamity, meetings will be limited to 5 people, marriages to 50 people, there may be movement restrictions between regions and the Government talks about the possibility of making the Stayaway Covid application mandatory in certain contexts. If it is true that there is a pandemic to contain, it is not true that individual rights have ceased to matter, especially in a case with a cost / benefit ratio yet to be demonstrated globally.
The requirement of a mobile application, available (only) for iOS and Android, implies the requirement of owning a smartphone running one of these operating systems, an Internet connection. Now, this is where the situation gets complicated. It is not mandatory to have a cell phone. And have a smartphone let the application run (there are alternatives to iOS and Android, such as Ubuntu Touch, where the StayAway Covid application is not executable) because it is based on systems developed by Google and Apple.
The questionable new world of contact tracking apps
September 2019 data from ANACOM, the Portuguese telecommunications sector regulator, indicates that there are 7.8 million mobile Internet users in Portugal, and the vast majority of them (7.3 million, or 90%) accessed the Internet through a mobile phone. ANACOM also says that there are 120 subscriptions to a mobile service for every 100 inhabitants. Accounts made, most of the Portuguese have mobile Internet and there are more mobile phones than Portuguese. However, the statistics can be dubious. The fact that there are more than 120 subscribers to a mobile service (we can assume 120 active mobile phones) per 100 inhabitants but only 76 mobile Internet users per 100 inhabitants may indicate that many do not have a smartphone others have more than one, which is not uncommon. In fact, as we analyzed last April, despite the technological advances that our bubbles may suggest, many Portuguese still do not have access to the internet or a fast connection.
According to the Government’s proposal, which will have to be approved in Parliament, the idea is that the Stayaway Covid application is mandatory at work, school and some public administration employees. In total, and according to data from Pordata, the measure may affect the more than 4.9 million people employed in Portugal, to which there are approximately 2 million students. In total, there would be around 7 million to use Stayaway Covid in a legally coercive manner, and against the opinion of the National Data Protection Commission.
In the resolution required of this entity in June this year, the national privacy regulator is explicitly giving its partial support only for the voluntary use of the application, making the issue of mandatory use very explicit. The Government’s proposal speaks of fines of up to 500 euros and the possibility of inspection of any police body, namely: Republican National Guard, Public Security Police, Maritime Police and Municipal Police.
According to a government source, Stayaway Covid has already been installed by around 1.26 million Portuguese, which does not mean that this number corresponds to the number of daily active users on the application. Also, as we explained in this article, someone who is infected needs to use the app and enter their positive test code anyway so that if they have come across you, they will alert you. This means that if you meet a positive person who has not downloaded the app, or has disconnected it at the time, they will not notify you. So far, 107 people have entered positive Covid-19 test codes, provided by their doctor, into the app.
Covid-19: Snowden warns of decisions in times of panic
The question is not only legal, it is also technical
To work properly, the application needs Bluetooth to be connected to your mobile phone and, in the case of Android, due to a limitation of the operating system, also the Location Services. More: the application must have periodic access to the Internet to correspond between its “secret codes” and the records kept on a server in the National Press / Casa da Moeda for 14 days.
This means that by making the Stayaway Covid application mandatory, the Government would not only make the possession of an iOS and Android smartphone mandatory, but also the subscription of a data package to an operator, and the permanent Bluetooth connection that, as we know, it consumes a lot of battery in most devices. The government proposal, published by JN, says that the law only applies to those who have “equipment that allows it”, but how is the equipment inspected? And how do you define this “possibility”? Imagine the common scenario of a mobile phone with no storage available to install another application, would that be a valid reason to consider that the device cannot install the application?
Regarding the connection issue, it is true that there are free Internet access points in public institutions or commercial areas, but these networks are, as a general rule, less secure than personal and private access, which forces some to share personal data. Also, worry about finding a public wi-fi network to be able to help The Stayaway Covid app would be a much more “civic duty” than just installing (voluntarily, for now?) the app, while keeping Bluetooth and location services active on the phone.
At this point, it would also be interesting to understand the hypothetical form of supervision over the use of the application: the authority would have to verify the installation of the application, the bluetooth connection and the data package. But what if the data package comes to an end or the negative balance does not allow the rate to be renewed? Could these conditions be classified as a kind of negligence?
In short, making a mobile app mandatory would set extraordinarily complex precedents. Having a mobile phone is an optional option, having a smartphone is another optional option, subscribing to a data package with a ditto operator, having them active too. Making distance education a challenge that, even so, managed to be overcome in more complicated cases with the supply of computers or the availability of internet access for students without such conditions. However, making Stayaway Covid a necessity is capable of being a truly impossible mission. Or, by the precedents, it would open, perhaps we should say, an undesirable mission.
We invest daily in items like this.
We need your investment to be able to continue.
