
Contact apps won't end lockdown. But they might kill off democracy - pseudolus
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/25/contact-apps-wont-end-lockdown-but-they-might-kill-off-democracy
======
papeda
This piece seems pretty short on details for such a strong claim. As far as I
can tell, all concrete objections appear in this bit of text

> Who tells your phone that you’ve been diagnosed, for example? Given the
> possibility that – in a post-lockdown scenario – individuals with Covid-19
> might be subjected to stigma, harassment or dismissal, they might be
> understandably reluctant to broadcast the fact. Then there’s the problem
> that not everyone has a smartphone, even though it’s commonly supposed in
> tech circles that they do. The pandemic has revealed that a significant
> minority of the population (mostly older people) still relies on olde-worlde
> feature phones. Moreover, it turns out that not all smartphones are created
> equal: one estimate is that 50% of all smartphones can’t use the proximity-
> sensing systems being developed by Apple and Google.

...which is followed by a hand-wavey "I could go on but you get the point".

All three complaints are about how effective the solution might be, not actual
reasons why it would "kill democracy".

~~~
dchyrdvh
They are right, though. It's not about the app, it's about normalizing global
survelliance: once the populace is convinced enough, it'll be sealed by laws
and enforcement. The whole idea is clearly insripired by the Chinese WeChat
app.

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eli
Seems like a classic in the “the idea doesn’t 100% perfectly solve the problem
so somehow it’s worse than doing nothing” genre.

I do not follow the leap from mild criticism of the approach (not everyone has
a smartphone) to the hyperbolic “end of democracy.”

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dleslie
Such a system is just a single subpoena or a single piece of child-saving
legislation away from being used by law enforcement.

I pity the poor sod who is incarcerated because they happened to innocently
walk past the scene of a crime, and roughly fit the description of the alleged
perpetrator.

~~~
eli
It isn’t. No more so than Apple/Google can be ordered to install something on
your phone already. I encourage you to read about the protocol being used.
It’s not perfect, but they put a lot of effort into protecting privacy.

The police already can (and do!) demand cell location data from carriers to
investigate crimes. Ad companies collect data from apps you use to build
targeting profiles.

This proposal is far more respectful of your privacy than any of that, and in
the service of saving lives.

~~~
unishark
> Ad companies collect data from apps you use to build targeting profiles.

More like a scary harbinger of what the govt could get away with rather than a
counter.

The extent to which browsers and phones monitor people beyond what they
intentionally share has never stopped seeming crazy to me, especially given
how widely accepted it is.

~~~
eli
Not with the technology being proposed for contact tracing because the
protocol design doesn’t permit it. There’s no central database of where you
went or who you met with.

The scary databases already exist and are held by various unaccountable
private companies. This is true whether or not we try to implement contact
tracing tech. It shouldn’t be an argument against it.

------
aspenmayer
Mandatory lockdown for exposure to one virus can be a slippery slope. It’s not
legal to discriminate against someone for a health condition or disability. If
you can’t exercise your freedom of travel are you being discriminated against?
Or is that acceptable due to the potential impact to the economy via the
Commerce Clause? Either way, this is some new territory.

~~~
em-bee
the economy is not the victim here. the question is, is your freedom to travel
more important than my right to stay healthy?

if we want to keep travelling then we must explore ways to travel that don't
endanger others. this will have a huge effect on public transport. but it is
imaginable. ironically (for someone who doesn't like cars) this also means
that car travel should increase as well.

and suddenly suburban sprawl looks like a good idea too.

~~~
odshoifsdhfs
I see this topic come up but I don't know the answer, but let me put it
another way. I will change go out with travel, but I think it also applies.

If you never leave your house, you will never get covid (give or take, lets
assume). If _I_ am sick, and I never leave the house, no-one will ever get
sick from me.

But why is your(others) right to go out more important than mine? People that
don't want to get the virus can stay home as much as the sick person no? If
people are so scared of people on the street having the virus, they can just
stay home and protect themselves

And on the other extreme, and this is what I hear a lot, it comes from people
that have 'good' homes. A room for everyone where they can be alone, a warm
house, wifi and facebook/IG/Steam and are either working from home or getting
some benefits for staying home (not all countries are giving checks to
everyone, and some people really are screwed). Now if you compare this to the
other side (and not even extreme a lot of people live like this) where there
is one room for 3 kids, no wifi, 4 tv channels and a moldy old house that is
freezing. It seems to me it is easy to say 'stay at home' when we live like
'kings' and don't think if that person doesn't go to work cleaning some stairs
or whatnot, they will have no food at the end of the month.

You can apply this to travel I think, by saying some people really need to
travel for work (wether airport or a subway), so why is non-covid people more
important that covid-positive people?

------
slg
That is one hyperbolic headline. I can understand having privacy concerns with
the software, but the idea that this will "kill off democracy" is quite the
extreme claim that the author puts zero effort into actually trying to defend.
This is an important subject to debate, but I don't think this article really
adds anything to that discussion.

------
DennisP
> Given the possibility that...individuals with Covid-19 might be subjected to
> stigma, harassment or dismissal, they might be understandably reluctant to
> broadcast the fact.

Then it's good that in the Apple/Google proposal, that information isn't
broadcast. The bluetooth transmits random numbers. Your phone stores the
numbers it has sent and received. Upon positive test, the numbers are
published and all the phones compare them to the numbers they've received;
people who detect a match have an incentive to get tested, so there's no need
for a central authority to know who the contacts were.

I don't see how this adds much to government surveillance capabilities.
Certainly not in the U.S. where detailed location histories are available for
purchase. (In fact, a case in 2018 put specific constitutional limits on the
government's right to purchase that data, after the government used it to
track down illegal immigrants.)

Given the vast number of surveillance cameras I saw last time in London, I
doubt this would add significantly to their capabilities either.

~~~
multjoy
> Given the vast number of surveillance cameras I saw last time in London, I
> doubt this would add significantly to their capabilities either.

The majority of CCTV is privately owned. The vast majority of CCTV is not
proactively monitored. Tracking someone using London CCTV is someone staring
at a screen for a number of hours trying to follow them on playback.

I’ve had the joy of recreating someone’s movements in a nightclub from CCTV. A
6 hour night out took me days to reconstruct, and that’s using a small number
of cameras in a well defined area.

CCTV as a mass surveillance tool just doesn’t work.

~~~
cmendel
>Tracking someone using London CCTV is someone staring at a screen for a
number of hours trying to follow them on playback.

It is until it isn't. Soon it will be a ML system and it will be possible,
then what?

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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
I’ve been really sad lately, see just how quickly we’re trading our liberty as
a society for the semblance of security.

Privacy invasive tracking, governors enacting law by decree, closing beaches,
moms arrested in parks and people responding with “good”. Makes me sad. The
virus came and gave our leaders all the excuses they needed.

~~~
lonelappde
A modern spin on the old saying: Your freedom to cough ends at my nose.

~~~
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
It’s quite amazing we ever tolerated each other driving cars.

------
StanislavPetrov
Every time I think there isn't another good reason to keep my dumb flip phone
instead of getting on the smartphone bandwagon they come up with one.

~~~
glofish
ha, as if that matters. if a law like this passes you will be mandated to
carry one with tracking enabled. The gov may even pay for a low end model like
that.

I would never voluntarily run an app like this nor would I consent

------
alephnan
Taiwan’s pretty democratic.

------
tialaramex
A nice headline that as usual doesn't reflect the article's content.

The temptation for a democratic government to expand its powers without an
effective sunset (cf. Patriot Act) is a nice headline but is also trivially
obviated. Since the UK's parliament has currently decided not to hold
Divisions (voting) it can only pass legislation that has broad consensus -
basically the Speaker or their deputy will ask a question, and if they hear
any dissent that means division, they're not holding any Divisions so the
motion fails. You might push through some open-ended nonsense with a straight
party line vote but that requires a Division. Unless you believe somehow
Westminster now lacks even one single decent person to say "No" a sunset
clause seems inevitable in any such legislation.

But there are legitimate obstacles far more interesting which the article
brings up. What proportion of the UK's population even own a device capable of
being deployed this way? If it's 80% of those who actually _can_ go somewhere
(it arguably doesn't matter that 95-year old Nana Smith doesn't own a phone
when she hasn't left her nursing home since the London Olympics) then you
might be on to a winner, if it's 40% that's unworkable.

And there are logistical problems, both in deploying the associated testing
and treatment strategy (e.g. where do we put quarantined people? If we send
them home that's not very effective especially if other members of the
household aren't tested positive) and deploying a hypothetical contact tracing
app to millions of citizens.

But one thing test + trace has going for it, which the article hints at, is
that we already know it works. The virus is not a mysterious "invisible enemy"
it's just a virus, if we can identify everyone (or more realistically almost
everyone) who is infected quickly and quarantine them in an effective way we
can literally get rid of it.

Guinea Worm is a surprisingly relevant example here. Guinea Worm is
_literally_ a worm that can grow inside humans, and so of course we can't give
people a vaccine against it, any more than we can vaccinate you against shark
bites or being mauled by a bear. And weirdly although it is a worm, the
medications known to be effective in killing worms in humans don't work. So
eradicating Guinea Worm is mostly about stopping the worm's lifecycle, giving
people safe drinking water, keeping people with worms out of the water, that
sort of thing. And it _works_. Chances are no HN readers live anywhere with
endemic Guinea Worm, even though we've nothing really resembling a "treatment"
for it.

Maybe we will get a vaccine that works. Or a miracle drug which makes it low
risk to have COVID-19 in a developed country where they can just have the
right drugs at the pharmacy to fix it. But maybe not. Test & trace works even
if not.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Across the pond, we have many permanent laws which in principle have sunset
clauses. It's an easy trick; you just have to be using the temporary powers to
do something important at the time of the sunset. Most people will say "well,
that does sound important, so let's give it another 5 years".

