Half of Americans Won't Trust Contact-Tracing Apps, New Poll Finds (arstechnica.com) 221
Before life can safely return to normalcy, we'll need an enormous increase in our ability to perform contact tracing -- identifying and contacting everyone who's been in contact with a person infected with COVID-19 so that they in turn can hunker down in quarantine and avoid infecting others. But, as Ars Technica reports, there are two huge problems with the massive contact-tracing platform that Google and Apple are working on. "First, billions of phones won't be able to use the tech," reports Ars. "And second: even among those who could, a solid half of Americans would refuse to because they don't trust insurers or tech companies with their health data." From the report: The 82 percent of US adults who have smartphones are exactly split on the issue, according to poll data released today by The Washington Post and University of Maryland. Half of the poll respondents said they probably or definitely would use a contact-tracing app, and the remaining half said they probably or definitely would not. While a majority of respondents (57 percent) expressed a reasonable amount of trust in public health agencies, less than half (47 percent) said they trust health insurance firms, and only 43 percent said they trust tech firms such as Google or Apple. Overall, the poll indicates that only 41 percent of American adults have both the technological capacity and the will to use a contact-tracing app. That's a problem, as research suggests that digital tracing would have to reach about 60 percent of the population to be most effective.
Of course.... (Score:5, Interesting)
But my first gut instinct is NO....I'd not run it.
I don't trust it would be run only for COVID tracking, nor at this time would I trust it to be turned off and 100% verifiably removable once this is over with....
I'd need a lot more assurances before I'd put it on my phone voluntarily.
That's my initial thoughts.
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I'd need a lot more assurances before I'd put it on my phone voluntarily.
Anyone putting this sort of spyware on their phones voluntarily needs to go get their heads checked out.
Governments will always abuse this. To combat child porn^H^H^H^H terrorism^H^H^H^H or Covid-19, there will always be a reason.
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Anyone on a tech site saying this dumb shit even in the face of how this stuff is detailed to work should examine why they're here or if they qualify as a nerd or has any sense of what matters.
The Google and Apple solution are, in fact, the methods that give the least information to the government and maintain your privacy the best. Your data is stored nowhere but your phone, other phones only get to accumulate a list of random numbers for 2 weeks, and if someone tests positive, your phone checks a the numb
Re:Of course.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course.... (Score:5, Informative)
It's your duty to be skeptical of government in a democracy.
Why? Didn't you vote for these people to serve on your behalf? What the USA has is not skepticism, it's outright colour and anti-corporation based warfare. And I'm not talking colour as in black vs white, I'm talking in red vs blue.
Not all countries experience insane partisanship. Not all countries are run by corporations. Not many countries have a such a deep embedded cultural disdain for their democracy as the USA, and certainly not all governments are quite as dysfunctional (this is not a jab at Trump, but a general jab at the any party in the USA's attempt to pass legislation without it turning into a singular partisan us vs them debate).
In a democracy the government works for the people and skepticism isn't required. The USA is not a democracy in that sense.
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Re:Of course.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Politics attracts the wrong kinds of people. There is little reason for them to "serve" the people and the more power you give them the less motivation they will have.
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Skepticism and blind mistrust are not the same thing
Actually, yeah, they kind of are.
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No, not really. There is a difference between "I want to verify before I trust" and "I don't want to trust so I won't". This is what got us a "skeptic" movement that's little more than conspiracy nuts gone berserk with a creed of "You are sheep for trusting A blindly. I don't trust A blindly because it's (the man|the mainstream|whatever) so instead I trust B blindly, mostly because it's not (the man|the mainstream|whatever)".
The problem is that we have a population that only learned to believe something or
Re:Of course.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah and your social security number will never be used for identification purposes. The Patriot act is just temporary and won't endanger our freedoms. The NSA does not spy on ordinary Americans.
But trust Google and Apple to protect your privacy. Now I've heard it all.
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Google/Apple/Facebook: look, free email, cat videos and celeb pics
People: ooh, shiny, gimme. Privacy? What, you have something to hid?
Google/Apple: look, here's a contact tracing app we've designed to save lives and mitigate a global catastrophe. We understand this is a sensitive issue so here's the system we've designed to preserve your privacy.
People: no way man. Muh privacy.
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People actually beginning to wake up to the privacy nightmare that is Google/Apple/Facebook should be cause for celebration, not snark.
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They should have added free cat pics and a game.
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No words? Here's some, that enters my mind ever time some authoritarian apologist opens their mouth:
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”
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Yeah and your social security number will never be used for identification purposes.
How is that the government's fault?
The NSA does not spy on ordinary Americans.
That is absurd. You can't pretend to be a secret spy agency involved in public safety but simply turn a blind eye to everyone inside your artificial border.
But trust Google and Apple to protect your privacy. Now I've heard it all.
Ironically I don't trust Apple but I do trust Google. It's the Coke recipe principle. Google makes it's money from analysing and selling access to you. In order for them to do that they inherently need to keep your data secret. Your data is Google's Coke recipe. They need it to make money. I'm far more worried about com
Re:I don't think you understand (Score:5, Insightful)
the gov't isn't going to use this to oppress you.
That is why private corporations are used to get around constitutional restrictions. Your rights aren't violated if it is a private corporation paid by the government that is tracking you or ruffling through your papers, right?
I understand perfectly that contact tracing is a shoe horn to make it illegal not to carry a tracking device with you in public at all times, because of public safety. You want people to be safe and not die, don't you?
FFS leftists can't even resist the urge to not abuse mod points; the last thing I'd ever believe is that any special ability granted to them in gov't won't be used for oppression.
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Not leftists but authoritarians. Authoritarians exist on both ends of the left-right spectrum. Communists and Nazis agree that central authority is the way to go. It's why National Socialists did indeed emerge out of the Socialist movement in Europe, just like Communists did. They were united on the authoritarianism, and divided on left-right political axis.
In modern context, left wing authoritarians range from neoliberal to communists, whereas right wing authoritarians range from neoconservative to religio
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I stand corrected, thank you. Authoritarians do come in different stripes.
As someone who lives in a deep blue state that wants to put a GPS tracker on my car just to charge me road tax, I'm sure you can understand how I could see leftism as being synonymous with authoritarianism.
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You need not look beyond religious right wanting to police your sex life to find the same element on the other side.
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Communists and Nazis agree that central authority is the way to go.
Actually, Communists believe that the state will eventually wither away.
E.O. Wilson has the best quote about Communism: "Great theory. Wrong species."
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The core idea isn't that you shouldn't profit, the core tenet is "Everyone take according to his needs, everyone give according to his abilities". Which is by itself not that bad an idea. And as soon as humans prefer working to sitting around lazily, it's actually gonna work... or in other words, never.
I like the snark in "good idea, wrong species" because that hits almost too well. It sounds great on paper that everyone should get what he needs and provide what he can to achieve that. Be honest, what's not
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True, but the old soviet style communists believed (conveniently for the leaders) that a period of authoritarianism was required to transition. The PRC is following that model as well and seems to have no public criteria for entering the withering away phase.
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I have no interest in little children trying to interpret the world through dreams and songs. I have interest in reality.
And in reality, both Communism and National Socialism are maximally authoritarian. I'm sure we can find both fascists and communists who pump sufficient brain-melting drug doses to produce "but this shouldn't be the final state of things" narratives, but like most drug-fuelled dreams, they are not real.
Which notably never stopped communists from pretending that their dumbest dreams are re
Pinkertonware (Score:2)
In America, they will track the spread of trade unionism.
Re:I don't think you understand (Score:5, Informative)
Your rights aren't violated if it is a private corporation paid by the government that is tracking you or ruffling through your papers, right?
Wrong. If an individual or corporation is working for the government they are legally required to follow the same restrictions as the government itself.
Deprivation of rights under color of law [wikipedia.org]
Re:I don't think you understand (Score:4, Informative)
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Even if they break laws they retroactively make their breaking the law legal.
Changing California civil law is much easier than changing the United States Constitution.
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Look, if these people could just kill each other that way, I'd lock them up in their church. Unforunately, sane people could get killed too. It's a bit like drunk driving, if they could just kill themselves, I'd pay to install a minibar in their van.
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Military dog tags have had SSNs stamped into them since 1974.
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That's not really how it happened. The department that issued the social security numbers specified that they were not to be used for identification, and not to be used for purposes other than social security. Lots of other government departments, and lots of private groups predictably latched onto it as a convenient unique identifier.
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You're probably too young to remember the government's promise to never use your SSN for identification.
It wasn't the government who started using SSN for identification. But hey, you as citizens have continuously prevented them from actually implementing identification schemes. You continually pose problems with identification via paperwork. You prevent every attempt to actually introduce and ID card. So that basically leaves SSN as the identifying link to a government records database.
But then your premise is absurd. The "not to be used for identification" was never intended to not be the primary key in the
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I expected a few people to object on /. but percentage of objectors here concerns me. I believe there are some reasonable objections, like normalizing the idea of tracking apps, but your post is one of the very few that seem to understand how the system is designed to protect privacy. Further I'm concerned by TFA itself because it means the message is either being mostly lost or people are so entrenched in their distrust that logic and proof are useless. What do you do when you have a way to protect privacy
Re:Of course.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also what do you do about people (like me) who don't have, want, or are willing to have for any reason, a smartphone in the first place? Lock me in a cell somewhere? Put a gun to my head unless I purchase a smartphone, install the gods-be-damned app, and have it physically attached to me like it's an ankle monitor? Guess you'd have to shoot me because I ain't playin', and I know I'm not alone.
We're doing the 'social distancing' thing already. Get a reliable test for the damned virus that works whether you're symptomatic or not, get everyone tested.
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Fortunately these apps don't need everyone to be using them to be effective. Like lockdown they won't stop the spread entirely, they will just reduce it to a more manageable level where we don't need the lockdown part any more.
So even if you don't trust it as long as enough people do it will help you anyway.
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The problem is one of "fool me once". Google and Apple don't really have a clean track record when it comes to privacy violation and the average government ain't that great in keeping it either.
If any of them asks me to trust them, my answer is a very sincere "why the hell should I?"
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Re:Of course.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Can I compile the code myself and check whether the binary is identical with the one they offer? If not, even opening the source means jack shit.
Yes, we're at THAT level of distrust already.
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Yeah, because they haven't been caught lying to consumers before and have been 100% transparent on how they track you, what they do with the information, tell you who they sell it to, ...
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Your data is stored nowhere but your phone
..which has been proven over and over again to be about as secure as a wet paper bag, and oh by the way how do you know with any real certainty that the app is respecting your privacy in the first place?
other phones only get to accumulate a list of random numbers for 2 weeks
Again: how can you be sure that's true?
There are so many descriptions of how this works on this site that at this point if you're still against it, you probably don't care, you're just looking for some way to be angry at the gubbmint.
The 'descriptions' could be total and complete bullshit. Unless you have the source code, can vet it yourself, and compile it yourself, not just install it from whatever 'app store' or whatever, you can't be sure what you're being told is bullshit or not.
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The 'descriptions' could be total and complete bullshit. Unless you have the source code, can vet it yourself, and compile it yourself, not just install it from whatever 'app store' or whatever, you can't be sure what you're being told is bullshit or not.
Hell, even if I have the source, review it myself, compile it myself, and install it myself....
I'm not an encryption expert. I'm not an enclave expert. I'm certainly not an expert of whatever api framework they would be using. I dont have the source code to those api frameworks. etc. etc. etc.
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The Google and Apple solution are, in fact, the methods that give the least information to the government
Bullcrap. There is no reason for the government to be in the chain-of-custody for personal data at all.
Google and Apple are collecting the data. They can also process it, work together to cross-reference it, and send messages directly to the contacts.
There is no good for the government to ever get possession of the data. The fact that the government is in the loop is a fundamental design flaw and shows that privacy concerns are not taken seriously.
Re: Of course.... (Score:3)
Great, now all we need is some tangible guarantees. For example, if this data is ever used in any kind of non COVID-19 investigation, the suspect immediately gets unconditional immunity for all crimes this investigation pertained to or might have uncovered or led to. Also, such a person get a million dollars tax free as compensation, plus all legal fees. Additionally, anyone using such contact data in any lawsuit (say divorce proceedings) immediately loses the lawsuit, plus any parties involved in obtaining
Re: Of course.... (Score:2)
I trust the end product is exactly as described on the box... said no one ever.
Don't complain that people don't trust. Become trustworthy first. Oh, and it helps if your main business isn't data collection for profit.
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IF that's true, it could be OK, but I'll want to build it from source and side load it. There have simply been too many shenanigans from law enforcement and corporate interests. Even if it's OK today, "unwanted features" are just an update away, hence my wanting to side load it.
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Re: Of course.... (Score:2)
You mean like when people just call people names with no coherent thought to their comments? Yes that is a question that must concern you.
Re:Of course.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile in every Target in america, people are installing spyware to get 5 cents off a bag of onions.
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I can opt to not install that app, buy at Target and pay 5 cents more.
Do I get that option with the Apple/Google app?
Re:Of course.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The correct approach is a subscription alert based model with path data kept on the phone: http://safepaths.mit.edu/ [mit.edu] Most smartphones are smart enough to run through a list of locations you have been and see if they match any of the alerted locations.
We need exposure alerts like we need tornado or other weather alerts. They don't need to track my every move to send out an alert to a geographic area. At a certain place at a certain time you need to be aware of the potential increased risk and take approp
No thanks... (Score:2)
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Contract tracing is an extremely important part of epidemic control. Remember when that ebola case got into Texas? Surely you've heard how people who get a positive HIV test are urged to notify all their sexual partners?
I have a friend who's doing contact tracing for COVID-19 right now, the old fashioned way. If we all go back outside, there aren't enough people to make it effective doing it with phone calls and interviews.
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If we all go back outside, I can assure you that the app becomes patently useless because the question whether you interacted with an infected person within the past 2 weeks can be answered without the app too. It's YES.
Ponder for a moment how many people you meet every day. In the subway to work, on the street, at work, in the shop or restaurant at lunch, during the trip home. And that's when you're not a very social person who'd go out to have a drink with friends or have a job where you have social inter
They don't deserve our trust. (Score:2)
And yet... (Score:2, Funny)
I also would immediately recoil at the idea, same as with electronic voting. The code won't likely be open-source or published, its likely going to be of bad design (US Govt), at this stage of the virus spread its unclear of such an apps usefulness. Even if the above are remediated, there are better options.
And yet, the story below is about 3 Billion Facebook users. So for any one of those to complain about contact tracing is a cognitive dissonance.
Only IF none of these 5 can go wrong: (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Stupid local gov'ts
2. Stupid national gov't
3. Evil foreign gov'ts
4. Greedy corporations
5. Sloppy/rushed programmers
Open-Source ONLY! (Score:4, Interesting)
- Does not require my name, address, email, or phone number. Is *TOTALLY* not associated with any authentication account that already has that info!
- Is decentralized, so the data is not stored on any one server.
- Shows real-time risk levels based on location.
- Is smart enough to know that when you say you have symptoms of covid-19 for more than 4 weeks, and yet you still go to the mall every day, you're probably lying.
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- Is decentralized, so the data is not stored on any one server.
- Shows real-time risk levels based on location.
These two things are incompatible. The proposed solution from Google/Apple solves both anyway.
With the G/A solution the server only needs to store a bunch of random numbers. No personal data, no location data, no identifiers, just random numbers. Security doesn't matter much either since it will be giving out lists of those random numbers to everyone anyway. The only real risk to it is bogus data, which you identified...
- Is smart enough to know that when you say you have symptoms of covid-19 for more than 4 weeks, and yet you still go to the mall every day, you're probably lying.
Which is why submission to the server will require the authorization of a health authori
Other half of American's don't trust polls (Score:3)
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This is really a non-issue. On average, there are 2 person-masses per 1 of your Americans, thus, if even only 50% of your people comply with contact tracing, you will spare the responsible nations further suffering from your incompetent handling of the matter.
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Compile it yourself if you want.
If you're not paying, you're the product. (Score:5, Informative)
People are starting to notice that being bought and sold as a product of one of the most reprehensible industries on the face of the Earth, the advertising industry, isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Somehow the data of billions of people is worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year to someone, but we don't see how. We're not benefiting from it, that's for damn sure. We're not even seeing the alleged benefit of relevant ads. I might like to know about certain products that I haven't actively searched for recently, but have looked at related things, but despite trackers literally everywhere we go on the web, the ads I get are still garbage any time I turn off the adblocker. So I promptly turn it back on again. All this tracking should have me looking like "relevant to my interests" cat all day long, but instead it's the same old barrage of trash. It must work on somebody or they wouldn't keep doing it, but despite all this technology that is supposed to help address the long tail, they're still missing me. I must be waaay out on the tail. Or maybe, just maybe, advertisers are buying myths and dreams, not effective campaigns that help them sell products.
Occam's Razor says the liars in the ad industry are lying to everybody, targets and customers alike. It also says everything they say about these tracking apps is also a lie. So yeah, the greatest potential public health benefit in a generation will remain inaccessible to society because of liars. This is why we can't have nice things.
gads, when I was a kid, gov worked for us (Score:4, Funny)
A good contact tracing app is EXACTLY what is needed, esp. since it is for the medical community, not the police.
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It's evidence that the government has too much power.
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...esp. since it is for the medical community, not the police.
And in my mind, that's the real Achilles heel of the proposal: it depends on people telling the tracing app they've tested positive and other people getting the notification and voluntarily doing something about it. Neither one seems terribly dependable to me, enough so that I am skeptical of the entire effort.
My understanding is traditional contact tracing programs depended on some public health agency and/or police knowing who's tested positive, not-so-gently getting the list of people they've been in co
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Now, we have ppl that are pushing this insane attitude that we should all fear our government.
You jest, but this attitude for a democracy seems to be not uniquely, but distinctly American. Most western democracies do not have a distrust of their government and have functioned just fine for many years.
Some skepticism is good, but many Americans act like they live in the PRC.
Maybe... (Score:2)
deja vu (Score:4, Insightful)
Before life can safely return to normalcy, we'll need an enormous increase in our ability to perform contact tracing
In order to board a plane just for an interstate flight, we have to suffer being either digitally stripped searched, or submit to a Freedom Grope by federal goons. Two full decades after 9-11 happened. Did that sacrifice bring a return to normalcy? Do we even remember what it was like before we let fear usher in the police state?
Before life can safely return to normalcy, we have to make sure opportunists aren't able to manipulate cowards and fools into sacrificing more of what little privacy and rights we have left.
Clearly use the European Model (Score:2)
No central data keeping. Everything saved on my phone, under my password. I get sick, you ask MY permission to get the list of people I was within 6ft of.
You need to minimize all risks, including privacy, not just the health risks.
That means balancing the needs of privacy and the need to contact trace. If you can satisfy both, why would you attemp to gain a small improvement for health with a MASSIVE invasion of privacy?
Whether this is a good thing or not... (Score:3)
Why is this a surprise? (Score:2)
Government and commercial tracking and tracing of us is already extensive enough, I can't see anyone volunteering for just a bit more...
Maybe (Score:2)
But it depends on what happens to the data that my app collects. If it just alerts me to a contact and, based on that, I can go in and get tested, it's not a bad idea. But there is talk about the need to hire 'an army' of contact tracers. Then 'No thanks. Not gonna happen.' I'll make my own decision about whether to self quarantine. It would be nice to go in and get an actual test done upon which to make decisions. But my state isn't likely going to loosen it's grubby little hands from testing resources unl
How many of that 50% have FB accounts? (Score:3)
Me? No fucking way will I voluntarily install one of these apps. New random IDs every 10 minutes? We don't save the data for more than x hours/days/months? Bwahaha. Let these fuckers get a foot in the door, next thing you know they're telling you your interior decorating sucks and you need to hire a housekeeper.
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Bwahaha. Let these fuckers get a foot in the door, next thing you know they're telling you your interior decorating sucks and you need to hire a housekeeper.
Not only that, but having it installed in your bedroom is as painless as it is useful.
Choices (Score:2)
Next topic: Facebook Used By More than 3 billion (Score:2)
People are stupid hypocrites.
I'm pretty sure half the population is of below average intelligence...
My first, second and third reaction? No. (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure HIPAA laws (in the US, anyway) would prevent such activity, for the same reason(s) that California deemed it acceptable to retract their requirement that HIV-positive people disclose their situation with potential partners.
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Really? You have to do that, for a disease where the vast majority are asymptomatic (and thus you don't know if you've been in contact with someone who is infected)? This sounds more like forced tracking of people for tracking's sake. Let's get the public comfortable with Government and big businesses knowing where they are at all times...
We all already knew that, lol.
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...And people think I'm strange because I won't use a company-provided phone and I won't use company-provided apps on my own.
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Maybe not, but I predict a sudden spike in the sale of cheap cellphones. A lot of people will have a Covid-phone that they carry with them when they have to have the app with them.