[ad_1]
April 15: Now, after several weeks of Covid-19 quarantine in many countries, discussions are turning toward lifting movement restrictions and how it can be done without triggering another wave of infections. Many things remain unclear, but most opinions seem to merge around two key themes: first, consistent and widespread testing for the virus, and second, contact tracking. Given the economic damage caused by movement restrictions and social distancing, there is no doubt that we must seriously consider it to loosen the restrictions.
Today, where the majority of the population in the worst-affected countries has a smartphone at all times, the technological opportunities for contact tracking are enormous, in any case.
China, most advanced in loosening its movement restrictions, relies on its deep app ecosystem for tracking apps, which is used to allow the movement of people (entering offices and shopping malls, traveling between regions) in based on an individual red / amber / green risk rating.
Google, meanwhile, has released aggregated location data showing where home stay orders are followed and where they are not.
Most of these efforts are relatively surface-level, so I want to say that the technology we have available allows for much more granular, and therefore effective, tracking. But of course the risk of falling into a privacy environment is enormous.
This risk is compounded by the various states of emergency and crisis powers enacted in many countries, which erode democratic oversight and are generally easy to implement quickly but much more difficult to reverse once they are no longer needed.
Fortunately, technical solutions can be built that balance effective contact tracking and privacy. And as it happens, Apple and Google have announced that they are working together to build such a system at the operating system (OS) level on their phones.
Both companies not only probably cover 99 percent of the global smartphone market, but having this functionality at the operating system level also solves problems with independent applications that use the same concept that has already appeared.
The way that the Apple and Google system would work is taking advantage of the Bluetooth technology available in our phones. Simply put, each time a person spends more than 10 minutes near another person, both phones register a pair of keys for that encounter.
If one of the people then tests positive, the system can alert all the people who were in contact with the infected person using these keys. The keys are anonymized so that they cannot be traced back to the individual user, they are stored on the phone and only uploaded to a server with the user’s content, to alert other users of the positive test.
The system that Apple and Google are proposing seems to strike a commendable balance between contacts and privacy, and in particular, it’s not based on GPS location data. Other apps have followed this route as well, such as Singapore’s TraceTogether app and the NHS’s proposed app.
However, having this functionality available at the system level solves a key problem, namely that it does not require the standalone application to run at all times to record Bluetooth contacts.
As a result, contact tracing through this system should be much more systematic and effective, and therefore we hope to be able to provide a solid basis for one of the two preconditions for restarting the economy.
More generally, this collaboration between Apple and Google also feels like a diversion for the tech industry as a whole. Either way you look at it, the technology built into a small device like a smartphone is amazing.
But until now, it has only been used for relatively trivial applications (cars on demand, location tagging) and sometimes of poor quality (adtech). Now you can suddenly and truly change our lives for the better, in an unprecedented life and death situation.
As such, the systems and decisions implemented now will determine the relationship between technology and society for years to come. Therefore, it is even more important that privacy is carefully considered, and it is encouraging that the two companies that have effectively created the current technology landscape seem to have understood this.
But it is time for the rest of society to abandon the idea that the advancement of technology is inescapable and that it is following a unique path. Instead, technological advancements are determined by regulation, existing institutions, and ultimately our values.
Now more than ever, we must actively shape our technology to work for us rather than accept it with resignation.
* Frederik Paulus is an advisor to the non-profit research group Research for Social Advancement (Refsa).
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay mail.
