6 votes

Black Lives Matter protesters aren’t being tracked with Covid-19 surveillance tech. Not yet

5 comments

  1. patience_limited
    Link
    From the article: I found this story interesting as the spouse and I were just discussing keeping a list of locations we'd visited, in case there are reports of new local outbreak sources. I found...

    From the article:

    Like many of the people who watched Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington talk about how the city had begun analysing the data of people arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest and heard him say, “It’s contact tracing,” I initially worried that this was the first sign of what we’ve feared since automated contact-tracing apps became a standard part of government responses to the coronavirus pandemic: data gathered for public health outcomes was being used to trace protesters.

    It turns out that in this case, the use of the term “contact tracing” by Harrington was merely a way to describe typical investigative (though invasive) police processes. Privacy campaigners can breathe a sigh of relief, but perhaps not for long. As Vox reported, the Minnesota Department of Health “doesn’t have a policy or law specifically forbidding law enforcement from accessing or using any information collected by coronavirus contact tracers or tools”. What prevented these fears from coming true on this occasion was not any legal protections or safeguards, but rather simply a lack of existing infrastructure.

    I found this story interesting as the spouse and I were just discussing keeping a list of locations we'd visited, in case there are reports of new local outbreak sources. I found myself justifying keeping Google Location Services turned on on my cellphone so I could reference its history, rather than making a written list. That may ultimately prove worse for privacy than having a dedicated contact tracing app.

    4 votes
  2. [4]
    Parameter
    Link
    I'm confused on the desired outcome of this article. Police have a number of options to choose from and are almost certainty employing those options. Is this article meant to encourage people to...

    I'm confused on the desired outcome of this article. Police have a number of options to choose from and are almost certainty employing those options.

    Is this article meant to encourage people to continue cooperating with the specific health related tracking?

    1 vote
    1. [3]
      TheJorro
      Link Parent
      No, the purpose is plainly stated near the end:

      No, the purpose is plainly stated near the end:

      To ensure that contact-tracing apps are not misused for purposes that violate our human rights, such as tracking protestors, identifying immigrants, or policing communities of colour, they must be built with privacy by design, accompanied by clear data protection and privacy legislation.

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        Parameter
        Link Parent
        All those issues can and have been occurring and it is independent of current efforts in contract tracing for health reasons. The scope here seems to be lacking.

        All those issues can and have been occurring and it is independent of current efforts in contract tracing for health reasons.

        The scope here seems to be lacking.

        1. TheJorro
          Link Parent
          The article opens with how people thought contact tracing was used for surveillance but it was a false alarm, as it was referring to a investigative procedure of the same name. I'm not sure what...

          The article opens with how people thought contact tracing was used for surveillance but it was a false alarm, as it was referring to a investigative procedure of the same name.

          I'm not sure what the problem is with the scope here, it seems perfectly fine after reading the article.

          1 vote