The ACLU criticized a new tracking feature designed by Apple and Google to limit the spread of the Chinese virus. The feature uses BlueTooth technology to track a smartphone user’s distance from other users that have tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus.
In a press release that was published on Thursday, the ACLU both praised and criticized Apple and Google’s new tracking API that was designed to limit the spread of the Chinese virus.
Breitbart News reported last week that Apple and Google had teamed up to create a tracking feature that could contribute to the ongoing mitigation efforts. The report noted that Google had previously had been caught collecting Android user’s data even when phones had been placed into airplane mode.
The tracking feature, which is called “Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing,” notifies smartphone users when they have come into the proximity of another user that has tested positive for the Chinese virus. The process, which utilizes BlueTooth technology, was designed to function without personally identifiable data.
The ACLU praised certain aspects of the tracking feature. For example, the ACLU praised the developers’ decision to allow the tracking feature to operate without personally identifiable data, thus protecting the privacy rights of users that choose to opt in.
“To their credit, the Apple/Google developers have considered that privacy problem. Rather than identify the people who own the phones, apps based on the protocol would use identifiers that cannot easily be traced back to phone owners,” the press release reads.
The ACLU argued that it is important for tracking features to remain optional for smartphone owners. For this reason, the ACLU suggests that some users may feel forced to adopt Apple and Google’s tracking feature because it can only function effectively under mass adoption.
Voluntariness is particularly important. A critical mass of people will need to use a contact tracing app for it to be an effective public health mechanism, but some proposals to obtain that level of adoption have been coercive and scary. This is the wrong approach. When people feel that their phones are antagonistic rather than helpful, they will just turn location functions off or turn their phones off entirely. Others could simply leave their phone at home or acquire and register a second, dummy phone that is not their primary device with which they leave home. Good public health measures will leverage people’s own incentives to report disease, respond to warnings, and help stop the virus’s spread.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.