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< | The noble lie: Colombia’s Covid-19 tracing apps are not what they seem | >
> | The noble lie: Covid-19 tracing apps are not what they seem | | | | |
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< | -- By CamiloValdivieso - 22 Oct 2021 | >
> | -- By CamiloValdivieso - 18 Jan 2022 | | | | |
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< | Section I - Introduction | >
> | Introduction | | | | |
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< | In the article “The Surveillance Threat is Not What Orwell Imagined”, Shoshana Zuboff argues that we were wrong in assuming that “mass surveillance and social control could only originate in the state”. She suggests that, today, “the Internet is owned and operated by private surveillance capital”, and that this has become the real threat to freedom and democracy. This “surveillance capitalism” she says, has created the “instrumentarian power [which] works its will through the ubiquitous architecture of digital instrumentation”. | >
> | As Covid-19 emerged, many governments rushed to develop contact-tracing apps as tools to tackle the spread of the virus. While these apps had little impact on public health, many suggested that by adopting them, governments embraced new surveillance mechanisms, making them yet again one of the biggest threats to freedom and privacy. | | | | |
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< | Privacy concerns regarding the recollection of personal data through webpages and apps are not a new topic. Since the Cambridge Analytica case, the world’s eyes have been put on “Big-Tech” companies like Google and Facebook, and the ways in which they collect and treat personal data. This continues to be a troubling matter for a great part of the population. However, it is not clear if this is truly a concerning issue for governments, or if, rather than that, they have adopted these new forms of surveilling system themselves. | >
> | This paper seeks to examine the way in which governments remerged as key actors of mass surveillance by launching Covid-19 contact-tracing apps. For this purpose, it will start by explaining some key features of Covid-19 contact-tracing apps. After that, it will present a few examples of their implementation in different countries around the world. Ultimately, it seeks to show that despite the different technologies adopted, their impact on public health is limited. Therefore, it suggests that governments were more focused on producing new digital surveillance mechanisms, than on creating effective tools to tackle the pandemic. | | | | |
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< | By taking as an example the way in which Colombia faced the Covid-19 pandemic, this paper suggests that by adopting a tracing app, the government embraced a new surveillance mechanism, making it yet again one of the biggest threats to freedom. It will show how the Colombian government introduced a digital mechanism to collect information. For this purpose, the first part will briefly explain the Colombian government’s response to Covid-19 through the “CoronApp”. After this, the second part will explain how this app, rather than respond to the needs of the health system, poses a threat to the right to privacy. Ultimately, the paper will show that under the argument of protecting public health, governments are in fact using an “instrumentarian power” for massive surveillance and social control. | >
> | Generalities of Covid-19 contact-tracing apps | | | | |
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< | Section II - Colombian contact-tracing: CoronApp? | >
> | Covid-19 contact-tracing apps can be examined through two basic elements: the tracking method, and the architecture employed to collect data. | | | | |
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< | In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Colombian government rushed to adopt lockdown measures to tackle the spread of the virus. Once it was clear these measures were unsustainable in time (due to, among other things, their economic cost), they shifted their attention to contact-tracing. For this purpose, the government launched the “CoronApp”. | >
> | Regarding the tracking method, most apps use sensor technologies that are integrated into mobile devices. One of the most common methods is "proximity tracing", which is usually performed by using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to transmit messages containing identifiers to nearby devices. Another popular method is "location tracking", which uses data from the GPS or cell tower triangulation to locate users. | | | | |
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< | “CoronApp” is a downloadable application that collects the user’s health data in order to serve as a contact-tracing tool. Through it, users are asked to fill out certain information, the application has access to people’s health history, and it is able to geolocate them. Though the government didn’t impose its use directly, it was required that employees report symptoms in the app and that people present it when accessing airports. This created great concerns among the population as to the application’s benefits, in contrast to its interference with people’s rights to freedom and privacy. | >
> | In addition to tracking methods, different architectures can be employed to collect data. First, there is "centralized architecture", which collects contact history data from mobile phones through a communication network. This data is stored and processed in a central server, which generates reports and sends exposure notifications using the same network. On the other hand, there is "decentralized architecture", which employs local resources for data storage and processing, using individual mobile phones. | | | | |
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< | The Colombian government launched CoronApp? as a digital surveillance technology strategy that supports the public health response to Covid-19. It argued that, by recollecting data, the government would be better equipped to determine further steps to identify Covid-19 outbreaks and tackle the spread of the virus. However, many have questioned its effectiveness for this purpose and began wondering if this was the real intention behind the app. | >
> | Despite the different combinations of these elements, in the end, all contact-tracing apps collect and exchange users' data regularly. This comes at a high cost: sacrificing privacy. | | | | |
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< | Section III - CoronApp? and gathering information | >
> | Covid-19 contact-tracing apps around the world | | | | |
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< | When the government implemented CoronApp? , the application was conceived as a tool the complements epidemiological surveillance with voluntary contribution of data from citizens. However, soon after it was launched, two functionalities were added: the mobility passport and the digital contact tracing. The first one was used as a certification method for issuing mobility authorizations during lockdowns; the second one was used as a means of tracing who had been in contact with suspected Covid-19 infected people. | >
> | In April 2020, Google and Apple developed an interoperable contact-tracing system based on BLE technology called the Google/Apple Exposure Notification (GAEN). This system, which is decentralized, presents an Application Programming Interface (API). Contact-tracing apps from many countries like the United Kingdom and Brazil have relied on this API for their notification of exposure. However, GAEN-API is not open-source, and its public documentation is limited, which brings transparency concerns. Additionally, its results on public health are questionable, as countries that used this technology (like the UK and Brazil) are among the hardest hit during the pandemic. | | | | |
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< | For starters, it is questionable whether these measures had any real impact in public health. Covid-19 cases continued rising, and when appearing before a Congress, the director of the National Health Institute reported that it did not have access to the data collected from the digital contact tracing functionality. Despite this, the government argued that given the information they had gathered, more restrictions to mobility were essential for guaranteeing people’s health and lives. In that sense, new nationwide lockdowns were imposed, national borders were closed, and air space for domestic travel was restricted. Some even consider that these measures, based on applications, lead to police violence, pervasive surveillance, militarization and stigmatization of communities (López, Valdés & Castañeda, Useless and Dangerous: A critical exploration of Covid apps and their human rights impacts in Colombia). | >
> | Another example of contact-tracing technology can be found in Singapore, where TraceTogether? was launched. This app is powered by the open-source application protocol BlueTrace? , which uses BLE technology. Here, the recollected data is stored on individual phones, and the Ministry of Health can only collect it with the users’ consent. It runs on a decentralized architecture, and some consider it to be one the most respectful apps in terms of privacy. That is perhaps why several countries such as Australia and Colombia relied on the system, after Singapore released it as free software. | | | | |
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< | These circumstances show that rather than using CoronApp? as an epidemiological tool for tracking the disease, it worked as a surveillance system through which the government sought to collect personal data in order to manage citizen’s lives. Given the lack of transparency about the use of the collected data, it is safe to say that the information gathered didn’t serve any real public health objective, making the government a key player in mass surveillance and social control. | >
> | However, as Covid-19 cases rose in Singapore during 2021, many began questioning the effectiveness of the app. What is worst, in early 2021 the government revealed that the recollected data could also be accessed by the police for criminal investigations. Therefore, with unconvincing effects on public health, the technology seems to have become part of a bigger system of illegitimate government control on the population. | | | | |
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< | Section IIV- Conclusion | >
> | India's contact-tracing app, Aarogya-Setu, is another example. This app, based on Aadhar (India's biometric identification system), uses both BLE and GPS. The recollected data is then shared with the government, on a centralized architecture, and while users’ data is not made public, the app does collect this information, along with the gender and travel history. | | | | |
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I don't see the point of the numbering, but if you do it, the numbers should be correct. This proves there was no proofreading. Lawyers should never publish anything to anyone without proofreading.
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> | This app stores location data and requires constant access to the phone's Bluetooth. Therefore, it is more invasive than Singapore's TraceTogether? , and, from the start, it was also established as a tool through which authorities could ensure compliance with several legal orders. And here, despite it being the most downloaded Covid-19 contact-tracing app in the world, its effect on public health has been unconvincing, with India being dramatically hit during the pandemic. | | | | |
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< | As technological innovations gave rise to mass surveillance by private actors, people began worrying more about “Big Tech” companies than about governments. While this may be true, and companies probably have more power and are better equipped than any individual country, through the examination of the Covid-19 response in Colombia this paper has shown that governments are far from abandoning their position as key players in this arena. Rather than that, they have seemed to have adopted new ways through which they can keep an eye on citizens by arguing somewhat doubtful altruistic purposes. How long these measures will last, and how governments will adapt them in a “post-pandemic” world, remains to be seen. For the moment, it is safe to say that governments need to be seen through a skeptical lens, for, as always, they seem to be relying to what Plato described as the “noble lie”, urging us to comply with measures which sacrifice our freedom for a made-up higher purpose. | >
> | Finally, we have the example of Israel, where the government launched a mass surveillance program (initially used for counterterrorism), which allowed the tracking of citizens as part of an effort to tackle Covid-19. The contact-tracing technology was managed by the Israeli Security Agency, which, rather than working together with Apple and Google, used the cache memory of mobile-phone location data directly to conduct contact-tracing. This created a much more intrusive mechanism, in which consent was not required. And even though Israel has been one of the most effective countries in combatting the pandemic, most argue that this has little to do with the contact-tracing app (as the app only has a 22,51% penetration rate), and much more with high vaccination rates. | | | | |
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Why is Colombia, a tiny place, sufficiently different from everywhere else in the world that its experience cannot be discussed along with the remaining 7 billion people in the other 190-odd states? Learning more about elsewhere is why it's good to be studying abroad, and this draft would surely benefit from a broader perspective. What the applications contributed to the data ecology was mostly the controls imposed by Google and Apple. Most non-autocratic societies adopted the APIs of the OS makers, which limited many abuses that might otherwise have occurred. Britain, which thought it would make its own application, failed, as most such efforts did, because of smalkl but overwhelming technical issues: battery life in the hardware. Singapore released as free software the application it built on the OS-makers APIs. Indian public health tech was oriented around the Aadhar-based Aarogya Setu application. The Israeli Shin Bet showed why the applications were moderating influences by using the native surveillance capacities available in every mobile telecommunications service to use all phones everywhere as contact-surveillance devices regardless of rules or consent. The US, naturally, had no national-level smartassphone-based contact surveillance system. Brazil .... | >
> | Conclusion | | | | |
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< | Learning about all the other societal approaches allows one to converge on similarities and differences, and to ask whether any of these made any difference, either to public health outcomes or to the level of illegitimate government behavior and control. That would produce an outstandingly improved next draft.
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> | Through the examination of several Covid-19 contact-tracing-apps in different countries around the world, this paper has shown that governments are far from abandoning their position as key players in the arena of mass surveillance and social control. Rather than that, they seem to have adopted new ways through which to keep an eye on citizens by arguing somewhat doubtful altruistic purposes. The impact of Covid-19 contact-tracing apps on public health is not significant, despite the different technologies adopted. As Covid-19 keeps spreading, it remains to be seen what other surveillance mechanisms will be imposed in the name of protecting "public health". For the moment, it is safe to say that governments need to be seen through a skeptical lens, for they seem to be relying on what Plato described as the "noble lie": urging us to comply with measures that sacrifice our freedom for a made-up higher purpose. | | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
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