
European Commission tells carriers to hand over mobile data in coronavirus fight - nemoniac
https://www.politico.eu/article/european-commission-mobile-phone-data-thierry-breton-coronavirus-covid19/
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njarboe
As the article says at the end, since this data is anonymized, it is only
useful to see how people moved in general before shelter-in-place was
implemented. You have to go full tracking on an individualized level to be
really useful after that, like South Korea did/does. I wonder if this is the
next step in the US and Europe. The next level after that is then requiring
you carry a phone with the tracking app (or just set this up with the phone
carriers behind the scenes) when you are outside your home. First as a
temporary measure for this outbreak, of course, but always extended when it is
about to expire, like the Patriot act. The potential for another outbreak will
always be with us.

I personally would not like to live in such a country, but who knows if people
would care enough to prevent it from happening.

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aivisol
I have this paranoid feeling that officials will now use this pandemic as a
shield to attack on privacy on all fronts. Just right now there are few more
posts on HN about the same (one more about EU, and another about Toronto).
Fight against pandemic now can be used as an excuse to implement whatever
measures they could not get through in normal times. And normalize it and
later forget to stop doing it.

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Krokku
This is exactly what is going to happen.

In our country they implemented a web page, where you can snitch on people who
you suspect to be infected.

So as it turns out, it seems that if you put enough pressure (fictional or
real) on a group of people, they will submit themselves to draconian rule for
the benefit of the collective and at the same time feel good about themselves
because they work for the common good. Sound familiar??

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phantom_oracle
If this is targeting carriers then the only way around it is to not carry a
mobile surveillance device anymore.

Based on past incidents by 3-letter agencies using it to stalk ex-lovers[1],
nobody should want this kind of surveillance at all.

[1][https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-
watchdog...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-
idUSBRE98Q14G20130927)

