This is just “security theater”, to put it in blunt terms. The number of smartphone users in India is around 500 million out of a nearly 1.4 billion population. Most of the smartphones are also cheap low end models that likely won’t support this app (and without a lot of battery drain and other issues).
The app is also very intrusive in the amount of information it collects. It requires continuous GPS access. It uploads data to a server. There is no data protection or privacy law in India, even after privacy was declared as a fundamental right a few years ago.
I read in a research pointed out in an Ars Technica article that contact tracing using technology starts providing more utility when 60% of the population uses it. That’s simply not possible in India.
Interestingly, the information technology minister announced that there would soon be a solution for feature phones as well.
For the requirement on phone manufacturers to pre-install this app on new phones, I hope at least Apple fights it out. We’ll soon know how strong Apple is on rights in certain countries.
"This is just something governments want to do for the hell of it. To me, it's just techies doing techie things because they don't know what else to do."
It also seems likely to serve as clicking another step down the slippery /Big Brother surveillance now using your own property to surveil you/ slope.
Establishing this precedent, helping condition people to cooperate with such unnecessary invasions, under the guise of a big doomy crisis, seems like it could serve a variety of erosive purposes.
Well he's definitely mistaken: for example, in Israel, technological contact tracing (not an app tho) by the Shabak led to more than 500 confirmed cases which might not have been detected otherwise:
Sure, but doing something "for the hell of it" implies it has virtually no practical value, at least to my ears. It's rather unproductive for someone (not you, in this case) to use a sweeping inflammatory statement when they later fall back to what they actually meant: a more reasonable and much weaker statement.
I mean, he's not wrong. The world is scary as shit and after making lots of money building technology and being sold on 'making the world a better place' and it turning into making more money for someone else technologists have to feel that they should do something to help out.
I've even fallen for that trap, writing a little Android app that can help businesses put up signs about COVID-19 after the 'grand reopening of the US' without realizing that most of those people will go bankrupt and have their live savings and have their future crushed by something we might not be able to stop without burying millions of Americans.
> This is just “security theater”, to put it in blunt terms
The security theater argument would make sense if there is an audience for the theater - but that is not the case. For example, there are no criticism of the government that it is not doing enough that the government needs to resort to a theater.
> The number of smartphone users in India is around 500 million out of a nearly 1.4 billion population
It's about concentration of the phones that matter. If the biggest risk of infection is in the cities, and if the concentration of phones in cities is high enough, then it is effective. Looking at the whole country as a single aggregate number doesn't make sense.
> The number of smartphone users in India is around 500 million out of a nearly 1.4 billion population. Most of the smartphones are also cheap low end models that likely won’t support this app
You don't need 100% of anything to control an outbreak. If the app allows you to catch transmission events from the 22.3% or whatever of smartphone users who have compatible devices, and that pushes R0 down below 1.0, then you win. Every little bit helps. Nothing in isolation is going to do it.
I'd be curious about that Ars article you mention. I can't believe it would make the statement in that way, because that's not really a correct understanding of the problem.
> I read in a research pointed out in an Ars Technica article that contact tracing using technology starts providing more utility when 60% of the population uses it.
According to the research Ars Technica referenced, digital contact tracing doesn't start becoming effective at 60% - at 60% usage, digital contact tracing can stop the pandemic [0].
If even just two people use digital contact tracing, then it can be effective:
Say one of the two people with the contact tracing app test positive for COVID-19. If the app knows that the person who tested positive came into contact with the other person who has the app, then we'd know that we should test the other person, too. If the contact also tests positive, we can isolate them to prevent further spread.
According to the research Ars Technica referenced, digital
contact tracing doesn't start becoming effective at 60% -
at 60% usage, digital contact tracing can stop the pandemic
There's no silver bullet with this virus. Contact tracing has proven ineffective in Singapore [1], even with additional layers of surveillance and thousands of dedicated staff reviewing CCTV footage, cell tower location data, and calling those suspected exposed to confirmed cases.
All the while efficient contact-tracing teams—including
members of the police and the army—identified and isolated
thousands of people possibly infected with the virus.
Members of the armed forces have been making up to 2,000
calls a day to hunt for potential carriers. Those told to
stay at home for 14 days have been monitored assiduously
to ensure compliance. (Unco-operative types face
prosecution or the loss of their residency rights, if they
are not citizens.)
Yet in spite of everything, the virus continues to spread.
Singapore’s approach continues to evolve. Take face masks.
Initially Singaporeans were advised that they did not need
to wear them unless unwell. Then on April 3rd, in his
third televised address on covid-19, Lee Hsien Loong, the
prime minister, said that the government would no longer
discourage their use and would, in fact, distribute
reusable ones to every household. Singapore’s testing
regime may alter too. Currently people’s travel history
and symptoms are among the factors considered before they
are tested for the coronavirus. But health officials say
the approach is reviewed regularly and that wider testing
might be adopted in future.
The difficulty with SARS-CoV-2 is once exposed, there's a window of several days of asymptomatic contagious transmissions. This is a biological health problem, and an app won't stop the spread. Viral fomites are like dust particles, airborne and remaining infectious on surfaces for upwards of 1-9 days depending on environmental factors [2].
Epidemiologists have predicted a global pandemic would happen sooner or later [3], and without a safe treatment the most effective action is to use Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions in any region where the virus might spread. Obviously due to modern air travel, it's now nearly everywhere.
If you haven't seen it, check out Dr. Jim Yong Kim's article in the New Yorker: "It's not too late to go on offense against the Coronavirus" [0]. Dr. Kim led the World Health Organization's fight against AIDS in Africa. He's also fought many other epidemics around the world for thirty years.
In his article, Dr. Kim says that any one tool isn't enough. We need to use a full five-part response to end the pandemic: social distancing, contact tracing, testing, isolation, and treatment.
Contract tracing alone isn't enough (as we saw in Singapore). Neither is social distancing (as we see in the US). Dr. Kim shared that in his experience we need all five parts to end an epidemic.
Well, that doesn't make any sense to me, given the reported experience of some countries like China, South Korea, and New Zealand. Unless they are all covering up/fabricating statistics, then somebody has discovered a silver bullet, even if most places haven't.
It’s the infinite quarantine argument. Nobody will get immune and the vaccine/cure is years into the future, so we all better stay at home forever while the government takes money out of the infinite supply so we can order food that’s not processed in all these factories that are closed.
> Using cell towers to detect location is not as accurate as GPS. ... By using cell tower triangulation (3 towers), it is possible to determine a phone location to within an area of about ¾ square mile.
The app is also very intrusive in the amount of information it collects. It requires continuous GPS access. It uploads data to a server. There is no data protection or privacy law in India, even after privacy was declared as a fundamental right a few years ago.
I read in a research pointed out in an Ars Technica article that contact tracing using technology starts providing more utility when 60% of the population uses it. That’s simply not possible in India.
Interestingly, the information technology minister announced that there would soon be a solution for feature phones as well.
For the requirement on phone manufacturers to pre-install this app on new phones, I hope at least Apple fights it out. We’ll soon know how strong Apple is on rights in certain countries.