Pollyana

Australian Government COVID-19 Tracing App - Big brother will be watching your every move.

Coronavirus lockdowns could end in months if Australians are willing to have their movements monitored

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-...nload/12148210

The battle against coronavirus is going hi-tech, with Australians to be asked to download a phone app that will monitor their movements — but only with their express permission.

It is understood the app would plot who had spent 15 minutes or more in close proximity with a person who proves to be COVID-19 positive.
The challenge facing the Government will be encouraging enough Australians to sign up.
Singapore, which is considered a more compliant society, has developed a similar app but only 20 per cent of its citizens have agreed to share their mobile phone data with the Government.

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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-...ad-it/12151324

"At 5:30am yesterday my seven-year-old son and I took our golden retriever for a 5 kilometre stroll. While shivering, we passed runners, walkers and fellow pet lovers. We've no way to know if any were infected with COVID-19, which is why we're walking so early and maintaining our social distancing.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks the Federal Government is going roll out a new phone app to trace COVID-19 victims' movements before they show symptom.

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Thoughts anyone?

spouse of scouse

I'd have to educate myself a bit more on the ins and outs, but if the measure just involves downloading the app and having your movements known to the monitoring bods, then it sounds an acceptable trade-off for being alerted if you've been in the vicinity of someone who's tested positive. I wouldn't want to know any details about the person though, and I'd want to be able to have access to a test for the virus if I was notified that I'd been exposed to it.

Amazulu

If it works and it means that we can get rid of a lot of this nanny state and welfare on steroids bullshit and start opening up our economy, then I'm in - until the current crisis is over, then I'm out

Normally, I believe that our government should be tiny and our interaction with it should be kept to the absolute minimum, but these are not normal times.......

rammygirl

Not everyone is glued to their phone though. I don’t always take mine out with me, sometimes I just want to walk in nature.

spouse of scouse

Good point. I usually carry mine with me in my handbag, but only remember to actually turn it on about once a week. I always get a nice surprise that I have so many text messages

verystormy

The U.K. are supposed to be introducing something similar. I would be happy to download it, but as we don’t see anyone, not sure how much point it would be.

abner

So, it sounds like a Good Thing...

• I do like how they've launched it, "not a GPS thing", "voluntary", "we won't retain the data", etc. That's probably necessary to generate anywhere near the required take-up rate, even though the median smartphone user's life is essentially already an open book for both the government and the social media giants (Facebook, Google, etc.) whether they know it or not.

...but...

• Will it actually be an effective contact-tracing tool?
  • The definition of a "contact", for the app, is essentially two Bluetooth-enabled phones active within 1.5M of each other for at least 15 minutes.
  • How well does that map to the actual transmission potential of the virus?
    • It doesn't capture transient aerosol transmission through an ill-directed cough or sneeze from an infected person
    • It doesn't capture transmission via hard-surface infective residue. That's a substantial--and by no means fully addressed--risk in my own "essential worker" environment.
• Will it crowd out more traditional, more labour-intensive contact-tracing methods (which have at least some potential to capture the virus transfer cases described above), because the smartphone app-based method will be seen as "more efficient"?

moneypenny20

Pretty much how I feel about it. Added to that there are still many people who don't have mobile phones, let alone smart ones. Unless it's taken up by a huge majority, I can't see how it's going to be effective. I may well be missing something though.

Beoz

Like all COVID19 measures, nothing is 100% certain of eradicating the virus.

However every little bit helps. If they can get a few on board and it prevents a certain number of new cases then it's a success.

I am not concerned about privacy. If they really want to they can find out my phone habits anyway. Hackers could get my passwords if the really wanted to.

I would rather be a help than a hindrance in this situation.

GarryP

The point is that the approach used by google/apple is decentralised and the singapore one picked on by the aussie government is centralised, with them at the centre. That's why anyone who knows about this are noping out.

As it happens I looking into this general area a year or two back, for a different purpose, and it's a bit difficult to implement given how bluetooth works, and what apple do to mangle tracking.

And from where we are, it's pretty much a dead duck and pointless. Put the effort into contract tracing the old fashioned way and telling people to turn on location history in google would be more effective (most people have it turned on without knowing). You can then make it public and allow individuals to do concordance with their own data, and their own apps they trust.

abner

So would I, as long as I knew that the "helpful" invasion of my privacy would be
A) actually effective (does the app's contact model actually capture most/all transmissability interactions?)
B) actually temporary (are all records fully erased after a defined period?)

abner

It doesn't "prevent" anything.

At best, it automates part of the contact-tracing process, once a user of the app is identified as infected. The real issue is whether reliance on the app will be allowed to crowd out other, more labour intensive methods of contact tracing, which are less efficient but far more thorough.

Beoz

Me me me. And this selfish attitude will ensure we can't get back to normal life.

Seeing as though you want adopt this selfish conspiracy attitude toward this tool try this on for size.

You install the app, you running it for 10 days and you get the virus, your symptoms don't appear for another 8 days, there's 8 days you've been infecting others. Your family, your parents, your colleagues. You are diagnosed on day 9, your state health service gets the details of those you have come in contact with, and can advise them to isolate to prevent further spread.

Ok that's not about you so let's revert back to the me me me.

You have made a few Coles visits in the last week. Who knows, might be a special on loo roll, and someone has been running around for 8 days since with the virus without symptoms and was keen on the same loo roll special in your local Coles. You were stupidly planning on visiting your 87 year old mum who has diabetes on the weekend. You are alerted in advance that you may have come in contact with a super spreader and best to give mum a wide berth on the weekend.

Stopping the virus, death, sickness, lockdown, economic doom and gloom might be just a little more important than a conspiracy theory.

Beoz

Exactly. And that's an awesome system to have in play.

the troubadour

Nothing to do with me, me, me a common supposition of yours when one questions validity into various motives or proposed policy. For starters there is not the guarantee into just who will be able to access information, how long it will be stored and so on. Blind acceptance of government is seldom a good idea.
It will unlikely go far in stopping the virus, depending on take up of the app by the population. A country like Singapore, usually fairly compliant I would have thought to such matters, has itself, from my understanding, a very low take up rate of less than 20%. Speaks volumes in itself.

People in considerable numbers, have little faith in government doing necessary the right thing in modern times, as we witness on a regular basis around the world.