From The Wire Report:
As reports emerge of countries around the world using cellphone location data to help map out the spread of COVID-19, experts say there are a number of ways in which provinces or the federal government could do the same.
There is nothing standing in the way of telecoms or tech companies handing over bulk data, as long as it’s anonymized. But personally identifiable information, such as the movements or location of individuals, would be subject to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), meaning it can only be provided to authorities if they obtained a warrant — or if there was an order issued under emergency legislation.
As the virus has spread around the world, countries like Italy, Germany and Austria are using anonymized data from telecom companies, while Israel, China and South Korea are employing location information to trace individuals.
Read more on The Wire Report.
Play this out a bit…. suppose your government (whatever country you live in) *could* legally obtain the information — even if it took a special emergency powers declaration/order to protect public health in an emergency — what would they do with the information and what could they do? Before you jump to dystopian explanations, stop and think about whether there are potentially helpful uses that do not involve individuals being targeted or contacted.
I think a lot of people jump to a scenario where someone is identified by their cellphone location and then either ordered into quarantine or people are warned that they may have infected others, leading to stigmatization or hate speech, etc. And yes, if we talk about individual-level identification and personal level use of the location information, then there are reasons to have strong protections and safeguards in place. But if we’re talking about just trying to detect patterns so we can allocate resources and determine whether we are making any progress fighting the pandemic, then we shouldn’t be so quick to just shout “No way!” Or should we?
What about anonymizing data? Would that take care of all civil liberties and privacy concerns? Maybe, but let’s remember that a lot of times claims that data are anonymized turned out to be erroneous. So I wouldn’t count on “anonymization” protecting individuals.
And what happens to the data outside of the noble public health use? Will the companies who collected it and shared it for public health purposes commit to securely deleting it and never ever ever using it for advertising or marketing purposes? Or will they keep the data and try to justify using it for other purposes?
And will governments decide that they can — and will — outlaw proxies or VPNs so that they can collect more information about us — all in the name of public health?
It is a shame that companies — and governments — have behaved in ways that leave many of us distrusting them even when they could be doing some good for all of us.
Read the article on The Wire Report. Decisions may be made that matter — not just for now, but going forward. They deserve serious thought and consideration — from a variety of perspectives.