[clug] 'Tracetogether' App - First Dog suggests 'publishing' source might not be enough

[jhock at iinet.net.au]

Wow. I didn't expect to be attacked. 

I think that you may be wrong there. I believe that there are current laws that requires a person to report to the The Department of Health if one has a contagious disease and the department has the right to use that information to find any other people who may be affected by contact with, our near that person. However, that person still has the right to privacy and the department can't release that information willy nilly to just anyone who doesn't have a valid reason to access that data. Hence one's privacy is protected. 

I of course would obey that law if I had covid-19 or any other communicable disease as I would expect anybody else to do so. However, as we have seen from thousands of other apps, the information they gather has been used for other purposes. I don't know what information is tracked by the app but I'm sure it is likely to be more than necessary as required by the current health laws. I don't believe one must have a mobile phone and one must switch on location. I try not to allow any of my information to be accessed by apps because I don't know what that data is and I don't trust what companies will do with that information. Amazon is notorious for eliminating its competition and pushing ads and they will store the Tracetogether data. 

I believe we are getting off topic here. It's the app itself that's in question and I would provide all information required by the Department of Health but I don't trust an app that I don't know what data it is gathering.


On 24 April 2020 5:40:22 pm AEST, Hugh Fisher via linux <linux at lists.samba.org> wrote:
>On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 9:49 AM jhock--- via linux
><linux at lists.samba.org> wrote:
>
>> Anyway, to get back to the topic, no government is going to get my
>location, or any other, data via the Tractetogether app. If it becomes
>legislation and it's enforced then I'll switch off my mobile phone
>until the covid-19 pandemic is over. Too many people give up their
>privacy just for the convenience of accessing social media and other
>stupid apps. They say that they have nothing to hide, but it's the
>principle that matters and that attitude makes it even more difficult
>for we who are concerned about privacy.
>
>You, like everybody else, don't have an absolute right to privacy if
>you have a
>contagious and deadly disease. 


> If you come into contact with someone
>who
>has Covid-19 and are now a potential carrier, you don't have the right
>to hide
>this from anyone else who you might contact in the future. 

> If this
>tracing app
>becomes the standard way to control infection, then you are risking not
>just
>your own life but those of other people.
>
>I'm not saying a tracing app is necessarily the ideal solution. See the
>link to
>Ross Anderson I posted earlier. But pretending this is just another
>ploy by
>social media companies to capture our data is ridiculous.
>
>Here's Maciej Cegłowski on tracing apps vs privacy:
>
>https://idlewords.com/2020/03/we_need_a_massive_surveillance_program.htm