[dmos62]

I don't see an advantage of such an app over carrier level tracking (for the purposes of enforcing quarantine or social distancing). It has loads of advantages if you want this to also serve unrelated population surveillance purposes.

[culturestate]

> I don't see an advantage of such an app over carrier level tracking (for the purposes of enforcing quarantine or social distancing)

Carrier location data doesn't have the resolution necessary for this to be effective. The carrier may be able to tell, for example, that you and I were in the same mall for 15 minutes, but there'd be no way to know how likely it is that one of us may have infected the other - we may never have come within 10 meters of each other.

Using the app-based approach (assuming universal penetration and, you know, proper implementation) you could infer with a relatively high degree of confidence whether we were near enough to each other (or a common third contact) to require quarantine.

That's an important distinction if your goal is to isolate as few people as possible so that the rest of life can go on.

[pmiller2]

Even the carrier level of detail makes manual contact tracing much easier, while simultaneously preserving some sort of privacy.

[dmos62]

You might be right. I hadn't considered that they could be checking for contact at such a fine resolution.

[ben_w]

I may be out of date with the tech, but doesn’t carrier-level tracking only give you the cell tower that you are closest to? And even then, not always?

[thinkingemote]

You can triangulate based on cells. In urban areas the accuracy is around 25m or was 14 years ago.

[jandrewrogers]

Triangulation is not the only option available to carriers, it is just the easiest/cheapest.

[eklavya]

I would really really try and understand the need of such app before making sweeping generalised statements like this. It's even more despicable for me since you know the govt officials are working their asses off for me and my family round the clock with no respite in sight. I have nothing but a new found respect for all the real corona warriors out there in the field.

[catalogia]

Don't you think you're laying it on a bit thick?

[eklavya]

Probably yes, but I mean the people out there serving us are people too. Let's stop demonising every move. Now is the time to stand together.

[alpwan]

> Now is the time to stand together.

Historically this phrase has always been used by people who organize and consume other people's economic output. And they most decisively do not "serve you". That is a euphemism like the slogans written on the barn wall in "Animal Farm".

I've literally never heard this phrase from a work horse.