Is it 1984 yet?
Discussion
So apple and google are going to modify their devices to see who has been in contact with who.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52246319
hmmm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52246319
hmmm
I can see where the OP is coming from with the thread title, but this is actually probably the least '1984' way of implementing something like this.
The use of LE Bluetooth rather than a GPS/ location based solution means nobody is 'tracking' you as such - it just requires cryptographic key exchange, and when someone has Covid 19 they basically mark their key as 'infectious.' Yes, there is the centralised cloud based database aspect, but if all it is holding is the keys, with an infectious/non-infectious marker, that's not a big problem.
Edited to add - The use of LE Bluetooth also means less possibility of false positives that could occur in a GPS based system. For example a GPS based system would probably see two people sat in two different cars in a traffic jam as two people in close proximity. Obviously there's no actual transmission risk there, but it would still flag as contact. Bluetooth wouldn't do that.
Of course, all of this requires trusting Apple/Google/app developers that the system only records what it says it does. And trusting people to log their status if infected. But all in all a pretty good solution if it can be implemented as written in that article.
The use of LE Bluetooth rather than a GPS/ location based solution means nobody is 'tracking' you as such - it just requires cryptographic key exchange, and when someone has Covid 19 they basically mark their key as 'infectious.' Yes, there is the centralised cloud based database aspect, but if all it is holding is the keys, with an infectious/non-infectious marker, that's not a big problem.
Edited to add - The use of LE Bluetooth also means less possibility of false positives that could occur in a GPS based system. For example a GPS based system would probably see two people sat in two different cars in a traffic jam as two people in close proximity. Obviously there's no actual transmission risk there, but it would still flag as contact. Bluetooth wouldn't do that.
Of course, all of this requires trusting Apple/Google/app developers that the system only records what it says it does. And trusting people to log their status if infected. But all in all a pretty good solution if it can be implemented as written in that article.
Edited by pip t on Friday 10th April 20:36
Edited by pip t on Friday 10th April 20:38
The problem is that if it works as described then it doesn't really work. So it can't work as described.
It's perfectly practical to make a contact tracing system, and to make it simple and lightweight. The problems are that it can't really be anonymous (for one thing, how do you push the notifications to the potentially infected?), it's likely to end up over sensitive (range/duration?) and there's no guarantee that the key data like infections will ever go into the system in the first place (asymptomatic/mild cases are still infectious but not notified).
So a nice toy, but not the most practical or useful.
It's perfectly practical to make a contact tracing system, and to make it simple and lightweight. The problems are that it can't really be anonymous (for one thing, how do you push the notifications to the potentially infected?), it's likely to end up over sensitive (range/duration?) and there's no guarantee that the key data like infections will ever go into the system in the first place (asymptomatic/mild cases are still infectious but not notified).
So a nice toy, but not the most practical or useful.
Jonesy23 said:
The problem is that if it works as described then it doesn't really work. So it can't work as described.
It's perfectly practical to make a contact tracing system, and to make it simple and lightweight. The problems are that it can't really be anonymous (for one thing, how do you push the notifications to the potentially infected?), it's likely to end up over sensitive (range/duration?) and there's no guarantee that the key data like infections will ever go into the system in the first place (asymptomatic/mild cases are still infectious but not notified).
So a nice toy, but not the most practical or useful.
In terms of the notification push, the key can be associated with a unique ID, much like the advertising identifier phones currently generate. It doesn't have to be tied to an existing email address, it can create an anonymous contact method (For example the alias contacts generated by the 'Sign in with Apple' system. Doesn't have to be tied to your real world contact details, just the instance of the software on your device.It's perfectly practical to make a contact tracing system, and to make it simple and lightweight. The problems are that it can't really be anonymous (for one thing, how do you push the notifications to the potentially infected?), it's likely to end up over sensitive (range/duration?) and there's no guarantee that the key data like infections will ever go into the system in the first place (asymptomatic/mild cases are still infectious but not notified).
So a nice toy, but not the most practical or useful.
The bluetooth aspect negates the range sensitivity issue - LE Bluetooth is very short range.
I take the point that you're relying on people to actually log their Covid status, and the non-symptomatic issue.
pip t said:
In terms of the notification push, the key can be associated with a unique ID, much like the advertising identifier phones currently generate. It doesn't have to be tied to an existing email address, it can create an anonymous contact method (For example the alias contacts generated by the 'Sign in with Apple' system. Doesn't have to be tied to your real world contact details, just the instance of the software on your device.
The bluetooth aspect negates the range sensitivity issue - LE Bluetooth is very short range.
I wouldn't consider 400 (or 100 meters for that matter) short range. Some Bluetooth 5 chip sets claim ranges far greater than this. Measuring distance between phones using just BLE is fraught with difficulties. Problems include atmospheric conditions and physical obstacles between the two phones. The bluetooth aspect negates the range sensitivity issue - LE Bluetooth is very short range.
You would really only want a warning if you had come within a 10 meter radius of someone infected. You would really struggle to get this sort of resolution using all the location techniques Google use.
This doesn’t need Apple and google it just needs the mobile phone networks. As part of the Covid lockdown in South Africa they are using mobile data to identify who a victim has been in contact with and contacting them to say “you were in the same supermarket as x who is now ill please come and have a test” kind of thing.
Agammemnon said:
How does this sit with GDPR?
Article 9 (2) (i) of the GDPR allows the processing of special categories of data if the processing is necessary for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, such as protecting against serious cross-border threats to health.Slightly cartoony explainer of it from the Google blog page if anyone's interested:
https://blog.google/documents/57/Overview_of_COVID...
Link to blog page with more technical in-depth explainers:
https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announce...
https://blog.google/documents/57/Overview_of_COVID...
Link to blog page with more technical in-depth explainers:
https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announce...
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