[alkonaut]

> Moreover, what I am addressing is how the tracking is NEVER going to go away even after the emergency is gone.

Wouldn’t people just stop using any tracking applications once there is no tracking needed?

The way I see it is so long as there is a pandemic we have no freedom anyway. It might seem like tracking your citizens is infringing a freedom, but if the option is house arrest I don’t mind.

Any government that would be ready to monitor everyone all the time for no obvious reason isn’t democratic. I trust my government because I live in a functioning democracy. I wouldn’t trust the Chinese government, or even the Hungarian one, and I‘d have second thoughts about trusting the US govt to do the right thing. But most democracies should be able to use technology to provide more freedom in this situation, not less. It’s a true test of a democracy to do this right. But not trying of fear of a perpetual big brother society I think is the wrong choice.

[TeMPOraL]

> Wouldn’t people just stop using any tracking applications once there is no tracking needed?

There's a risk that once the capacity is tried and tested, governments and private companies alike will try to make it enticing and useful for different means. The role of privacy activists should be nipping all these follow-up ideas in the bud. Ensuring that emergency measures are used only during actual emergencies. But not fighting them in situations like this.

[Reelin]

I completely agree. To that end, it actually seems like fully decentralized client side contract tracking would be a useful technology to have a set of government supported open specifications for. Building the functionality into the OS, securely encrypting (no key escrow!) with a user supplied password, and requiring a warrant to seize (but good luck without the password) would proactively enable a robust response to future pandemics.

Actually I suppose this matches my view on location histories. I like them as an idea, but current implementations exfiltrate all the data off of my device which bothers me to no end.

[TeMPOraL]

I share the feeling. I want my phone to collect data about me and my environment. But I want to own that data and use it for myself, not have it sent out to some third parties.