folks, it's probably no surprise that we are getting, only this morning,
two reposts that advocate a more aggressive employment of data-driven
measures, both implying that data privacy may have to be curtailed in
the service of public health. (i've excerpted the crucial passages from
both messages below.)
in germany, the minister for health yesterday had to withdraw a law
proposal that would have gone in this direction, in the face of strong
protests, incl. from the ministry of justice.
i wonder what the options for technical solutions might be that could be
more acceptable for people concerned about data protection and civil
rights. (to me, the italian appeal to the benevolence of the GAFA seems
all too naive, though understandable in the desperate situation in
italy.) would it perhaps even be possible to think forward, to consider
improvements to the technical systems that would give smartphone users
(are we talking about anybody else?) a greater level of control about
their data profiles, at least in the long run? or other real advantages?
just speculating...
-a
Am 26.03.20 um 11:28 schrieb William Waites:
>
> Marcel Salathé: I fear we will need stronger measures
>
> Interview by Sylvie Logean for Le Temps
> Original:
https://www.letemps.ch/sciences/marcel-salathe-crains-ne-devions-aller-vers-mesures-plus-strictes
> Translation by William Waites
> 2020/03/25
<snip>
> Marcel Salathé:> The only way to manage this health crisis, in the
absence of treatments
> and while we wait for an effective and safe vaccine - which we know we
> won't have before 9-18 months - is to attack the problem as the Asian
> countries have done: with large-scale testing, isolating the sick, and
> tracing people who have been in contact with infected people and
> isolating them in turn if necessary. This strategy, recommended by the
> World Health Organisation and which we could accomplish in Switzerland
> while protecting personal data, has the immense advantage of enabling a
> rapid and active extinction of local outbreaks, while avoiding strict
> confinement for a long period of time.
<snip>
Am 26.03.20 um 09:59 schrieb nettime's avid reader:
EDITORIAL
Let's get the network data
EDITION OF THE 03/25/2020
POSTED 24.3.2020, 19:12
We are a group of journalists who want to join the country's effort
against contagion.
<snip>
But as information workers we know that all of this will be a dead
letter if we don't have the data to power these tools.
Without data we die.
Government and European institutions must ask those who have these
data to make them available to health and administrative authorities
to limit the damage.
The great service providers: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, know
a lot, if not everything, about social relationships, mobility, the
mood, the physical conditions, of millions and millions of Italians,
we talk about those Italians of more dynamic and competitive areas,
living on the net, constantly talking to the net.
We need to know what happened in February, how it is possible that
the volcano exploded in Italy, and above all we must now enclose the
contagion areas, identifying the most dangerous groups precisely in
the passage from north to south of the wave of the coronavirus.
Only the databases of these profiling powers would allow us to
hopefully fight this war.
As the European Commission claims, it is not a question of
expropriating anyone.
We ask these large corporations for collaboration, we want
institutions to get attention for concrete cooperation.
We would like the government to get positive answers from those who
are partners in the public administration, from companies that are
collecting invaluable masses of data for the movement of a large part
of the population on their e learning and smart working platforms.
We have read that Mark Zuckerberg fears a collapse of his servers
due to the excess of users by quarantined citizens. Then he too
should bring these people out of the house by shortening the time
of isolation, help governments to georeference the real areas of
transmission of the virus.
A platform that gathers almost half of the earth's population is in
itself a common good, a universal service.
Let these great technological brands gain the honor of being an
essential part of our lives by using the virality of the network
against the virality of the disease.
They know a lot, if not all. They know where, how and when the
contagion opportunities have arisen, the rush of the virus has
accelerated.
Can all this be made available to the country right away?
Owners of these platforms can elaborate, trace calculate the crisis
points, developing graphs that make us understand in Lazio or Campania
or Sicily what is about to happen.
Let them independently give us the results of this elaboration.
We don't want to get our hands in their drawers. Let the owners of
these drawers make us win this battle, to save victims, to limit
suffering, to save their users.
We know it can. We know they can.
<snip>
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