The technical argument against contact tracing right now is that the resolution of these devices is not sufficient to figure out contact history. The phone knows you are at South Station, but not who you passed within six feet of. So it's useless, right?
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But the point is we can use this data IN CONJUNCTION with all other methods, and we can use it to reduce the search space so that other, more labor intensive methods (like interviews) can be brought to bear. We also live in a surveillance society with things like camera footage
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The correct way to look at this technical capability is not as a magic surveillance solution that replaces the hard work of contact tracing, but an additional tool, *already deployed at scale internationally*, that we can put in the hands of epidemiologists and doctors
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In particular, phone based contact tracing can retroactively answer vital questions like "did anyone who attended this party that was a spreading event then fly to another city? Where did they go while infectious?" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/coronavirus-westport-connecticut-party-zero.html …
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It doesn't matter that your phone doesn't give pinpoint location data. The rough location data may already be enough to help investigators cut the possible number of contacts from tens of thousands to hundreds. And that is the kind of capability we need as we move to containment
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Note that *in particular* this implies that measures that just do contact tracing, while trying to keep location ambiguous or undetermined, are not sufficient. We need the maximum resolution data these devices are already broadcasting to advertisers, platform owners, the GRU, etc
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The more general problem with privacy advocates' arguments against technical measures is that they are not being made in good faith. They have a desired conclusion ("this doesn't even work!") based on their policy preferences, and they fit their thinking to meet it.
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I'd be very curious to hear from people in the epidemiological world whether a data stream that let them track long-distance travel by infected people, and generate a list of potential contacts based on even rough proximity data, would be useful in containing this disease
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There are all sorts of privacy arguments you can make for why we shouldn't do this kind of contact tracing. I'll fight you, but they're strong arguments! The technical arguments, however, are weaksauce. Anything that helps prune a list of potential contacts is better than nothing
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Replying to @Pinboard
Agree that technically this is probably possible - but once a system is set up that involuntarily allows pinpointing users near-exact locations and who they've come into contact with, there's no chance agencies such as the NSA won't abuse it after the crisis is over
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This argument comes up again and again, but it's incoherent. The NSA either acts within the law, or it doesn't. A. If it obeys the law, it won't abuse this data B. If it doesn't obey the law, it already *has* all this data, from the many private sector parties who collect it
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Replying to @Pinboard
disclaimer: not an expert on this but speaking to (B), this assumes all private-sector parties will coordinate with the NSA without putting up a fight. Does the NSA have cell tower and GPS data on you? Probably. Bluetooth, wifi, etc.? They'd probably need Apple to acquiesce
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Replying to @rishab_hegde @Pinboard
Apple may have already agreed and is freely giving this data over under a gag order but I don't think that's a given and knowing that most of their marketing is around privacy and the NSA has already had a leak, I would expect them to fight like hell against an order like that
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