The Deletist

It’s interesting to speculate what the state of privacy could be as we transition from a state of action to one of management in the pandemic.

Different countries have taken various approaches to control the disease. Some countries, like China, have employed rigid restrictions by shutting down entire provinces and forcibly quarantining people. Another part of their strategy relies on using artificial intelligence (AI), technology, and surveillance to both track people and assist with contact tracing.

Other countries, like Sweden, have put some restrictions in place but have largely relied on the honor system for compliance.

At this stage, it’s hard to know for sure which path is the right one to take. The question of using technology to assist with contact tracing is a big one for more democratic countries, particularly around the management of the collected private, sensitive information.

When it comes to technology, we often sacrifice privacy for convenience. Sometimes we may perceive the risk of giving up our information as minimal to use a new app. Other times, we may opt out, or accept less functionality to preserve some of our privacy.

However, when our health and livelihoods are challenged, this brings a new perspective to the privacy issue. Many people are scared of getting Covid-19, or of unwittingly spreading it. Fear is a powerful motivator that could sway people to think differently about privacy.

In pre-pandemic times, people might find something like contact tracing through smartphones, such as the techniques used in China, to be invasive, especially when combined with AI and other high-tech surveillance measures. But in the middle of a pandemic, the perspective and context changes. Some people may re-evaluate their stances on privacy, or be willing to sacrifice some of their privacy for the greater good of preventing the spread of Covid-19.

Decisions surrounding our personal privacy and how much of it we’re willing (or required) to share should always be taken seriously, even during a pandemic when we’re all eager to get back to some kind of normalcy. It’s at times like these we may be tempted to give up too much without a way to get it back later because we’re scared or desperate or any other number of emotions. Going forward, will we only be able to move around “freely” if we decide to share our Covid-19 test results and allow ourselves to be tracked through smartphones?

Last week I attended my first virtual birthday party. Through technology, we joined six different households in three different countries and three different time zones. I have to admit that our virtual party captured the essence and feel of a family gathering. Of course I would have preferred to see everybody in person, but for now it was better than nothing.

Due to social isolation requirements, many of us have been resorting to video calling more often. It can be a great alternative for connecting with people when you can’t be there physically.

However, since the pandemic requirements happened rather suddenly, it meant that things like convenience, and ease of use with video calling, were primary considerations. Sometimes they were even prioritized over things like privacy, quality, security, etc.

I love many aspects of video calling, but some features make me leery about using it. For example, the ability to record calls easily is something interesting to consider. For personal calls I wouldn’t be too worried about it, but in a business setting it could take on a new meaning.

As someone who manages information for a living, recording calls becomes a whole new type of medium that needs to be saved, managed, organized, described, etc. And in many cases, unless a transcript is available for the call, searching audio for content later can be tricky.

Another easily remedied hesitation I have is the video part. Once PCs started coming with built-in cameras, I started covering mine with heavy tape. I had read too many stories about cameras being turned on by spyware. Or of cameras accidentally being left on when they really should have been turned off. Covering the camera and setting options to default the camera to “off” are two strategies I employ.

My last hesitation has to do with the security. Ever since I read about a security flaw with Zoom last year that it would secretly reinstall itself on Macs and turn on the camera anytime, I’m extra careful about connecting to video calls. Also, a lot of articles were recently written about “zoombombing,” essentially when hackers were joining Zoom calls uninvited. I like that Zoom has made video calling so easy and uncomplicated, but this is a perfect example of when convenience and ease of use were prioritized over security and privacy.

Staying safe also means protecting yourself digitally while socially isolating.

I’ve been reading about the various methods for contact tracing being used in an effort to manage Covid-19. Some Asian countries have been using technology to track where a person infected with Covid-19 has been. This data is then used to identify who else was in the area around the infected person within a certain time frame. People are instructed to quarantine and the government continues to track them to ensure they are compliant.

In the United States, humans are being trained to do contact tracing. Essentially this involves speaking with people recently diagnosed and getting a list of all the people they’ve interacted with in the preceding 48 hours. Then each person on the list is called and informed by the contact tracer that they may have been exposed to the virus, along with actions to take.

Recently, Google and Apple announced an alliance to create software that would enable governments to track (and hopefully prevent) the spread of Covid-19, “…with user privacy and security central to the design.” (https://www.apple.com/covid19/contacttracing/) The idea is that people would be able to opt-in to the system. If infected, the person would have to disclose voluntarily. Then other users in the system would be alerted whenever they were close to or interacted with the infected person.

As someone who lives in an urban area, I’m wary of something like this without understanding how it would work in densely populated areas. How much contact would I have to have to receive an alert on my phone? Would I get one alert, or many? In urban areas, people would probably be getting alerts non-stop. Sounds stressful.

The real challenge is that measures like this often start out as voluntary and end up being compulsory. Usually in the rush to get these initiatives going, silly things like confidentiality and how this massive volume of highly sensitive and private information would be managed, gets overlooked. It seems with technology we’re always giving up our control for convenience, or in this case, public safety.

Even though everybody is eager to do what they can to stop the virus, it’s hard to predict how people could potentially be stigmatized for having had the illness. Or maybe those who haven’t yet had it. Either way, it makes a strong case to protect our sensitive health information before we start divulging it or trusting tech company giants with it, for any reason.