Skeets, I'll give you something to vent about! This is an excerpt from a news letter I receive.
Google and Apple just partnered up on COVID-19 “contact tracing”…
As if the above information wasn’t disturbing enough, I have even more news to share.
As we discussed recently, Google recently published its “Community Mobility Reports.” These reports gather location data from smartphones to track how people have been moving around at country, state, and even county levels.
Companies like Google already know where we work, live, shop, entertain ourselves. They even know what parks we go to. But it turns out that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They also know who we are encountering as we go about our daily lives.
This rich treasure trove of data is enabling something called “contact tracing.” It’s designed to alert consumers if they have come in contact with a person who has COVID-19.
And both Google and Apple just announced that they are adding an application that employs this technology to iPhones and Android phones.
Google and Apple will roll out their respective contact tracing apps as early as next month. I, for one, will not be downloading it.
Through this app, our phones will share information with other phones automatically using Bluetooth. That’s right – our phones will connect us to other people’s phones. It will happen automatically. Health authorities like the CDC will manage this communication system.
And it gets much worse.
Later this year, both companies plan to add this contact tracing technology directly to their operating systems.
We’ll get a software update on our phones that will automatically install this functionality – no app necessary. It will be built right into the operating system… We won’t be able to delete it.
Officially, this is an opt-in system. But as we know, this type of thing is usually buried within a giant legal agreement that we must consent to use the product or service. When it gets built into the operating system, we won’t have much choice in the matter. If we consent to use the operating system, we consent to contact tracing.
Looking at the big picture… More than a third of the world’s population uses an iPhone or Android smartphone. That means that Apple and Google will be contact tracing more than three billion people around the globe.
Let’s imagine a worst-case scenario: Let’s say this technology tags you as coming into close contact with somebody infected with COVID-19.
Then, perhaps on your way to the grocery store, a police cruiser is sent to intercept you. You are “contained” by force and quarantined for the sake of society. To me, that sounds an awful lot like detention without due process.
I know the world is eager to stop the spread of COVID-19, as am I. But for those of us who care about our rights and privacy, this is a frightening development.