The efforts to contact trace COVID-19 spread requires more surveillance, and it's unclear whether tracking the virus spread for greater public health will compromise individual privacy.
To prevent further coronavirus spread, public health experts recommend contact-tracing in the next phase of the pandemic as the U.S. reopens its economy. But that's easier said than done.
Google, Apple and Facebook are among the big tech companies working on technology applications to track the spread of COVID-19. Before the pandemic, the companies had "spotty records on privacy," according to STAT.
In announcing their plans to track the virus through smartphone data and apps, the companies have assured users that privacy protection is a top concern and that American's won't have to give up their privacy for the betterment of public health.
But is that really true?
Apple and Google have teamed up to build APIs that users can download on their smartphones that will catalog whom the users come into contact with and alert them when a contact has tested positive for COVID-19. The partners released their methodology to explain how they would encrypt information to guard against malicious attacks. The said they won't collect location data or personally identifiable user information.
House members questioned whether the project would expose users to additional risk after it was announced, according to Politico, with Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) tweeting: "Tech companies' new feature to contact trace coronavirus cases has positive potential, but we must ensure privacy concerns are considered. I'll be following this closely to ensure consumer privacy is protected."
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) also jumped in via tweet, saying: "Tech companies need to put privacy first, and ensure these products and services include privacy by design."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Apple and Google "have a lot of work to do" to persuade the general public that they are serious about privacy and security, as reported in Reuters.
"A public health crisis cannot be a pretense to pave over our privacy laws or legitimize tech companies' intrusive data collection about American's personal lives," he said in the report.
Users would have to opt into the program, meaning they would download apps on their phone and activate the tracker. There is some question as to whether people in the U.S. would be willing to do this. In other countries, such as China and Iceland, people are downloading apps to monitor their movements with the goal of preventing further illness spread.
Apple also is launching a screening tool for COVID-19. It responded to a Senate inquiry about patient privacy with a letter describing how the company aims to follow CDC guidelines to keep users informed and safe. Apple also developed a COVID-19 website and COVID-19 app in partnership with the CDC, FEMA and White House Coronavirus Task Force to spread information. All were built with a focus on user privacy, according to the company. The tools don't require a user sign-in or association with Apple ID. Apple said the data will be de-identified and according to their agreement, no parties will attempt to re-identify user data.
With the website and app, Apple is only collecting information necessary to support operations, not the information entered into the website.
Facebook tools include using its data on population movements and connectedness to predict the spread of the virus and understand the effectiveness of lockdown measures, according to Politico. The social networking site said it will use its insights into how people know each other to help researchers predict disease spread. It says it has taken steps to reduce the possibility that individuals could be re-identified in the data released. Facebook's data is only available to academics.
Big tech companies aren't the only ones developing technology to trace COVID-19 spread; the San Francisco public health department is working with a task force to develop an online app that will trace the interactions of people who test positive for COVID-19. The group plans to use an online and phone-based contact-tracing app to manage COVID-190 cases and ongoing care, and will ask patients for permission to analyze their phone location data to gain a stronger perspective of where the patient has been that could have been crowded.
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