Would you install a GPS tracking app on your phone to combat COVID?

[NickB79]

I've seen references to adopting the South Korean model, as they haven't instituted much of a lockdown or economic crash and yet have had better results with coronavirus containment than the US or Europe.

Yet, a key feature of their model is tracking their citizens via GPS to quickly identify those exposed to a known carrier.

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/F17ADA06-7367-11EA-AA1E-FE177E78275D

So, how many here would do the same here in the US?

[Laffy Kat]

1. Boy, that is a good question. nt

[NickB79]

2. I honestly don't know how I'd go.

If it were still Obama or Hillary, I'd say probably yes. Trump, probably no.

[Merlot]

6. The app would be run by a non-profit, not the government or a corporation

That was my understanding on it. I would be ok with it. I don't want my personal data being given to corporations who are trying to sell me something, but if this were done for the good of society and the information was just GPS I'd be fine with it.

[customerserviceguy]

3. No

I won't even have an Alexa, etc. in my home. Same goes for a Fitbit. Too many people already have the means to track me just from using my laptop. At this point, they're only trying to figure out what to sell me through advertising that I can ignore. When it comes to my civil liberties, I'm not so eager to give anything away.

[Squinch]

4. No.

[Hekate]

5. Are you aware that your cell phone already tracks your every move?

You have to go to tremendous lengths to make it stop -- the phone itself, and every damn app. And even then ... you are being tracked.

Welcome to the 21st Century, where long ago we chose to pay to lose our privacy in service to the latest shiny thing.

[NickB79]

13. I'm aware it's possible, with the right tools by certain groups

But actively asking me to install an app with the sole purpose of doing so? That's a new level.

[Hekate]

16. I'm pointing out that it's already a done deal, we paid for it willingly, and the data is already...

...being aggregated by every entity that wants to sell you something.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Even With Location Turned Off?

I turn off location on everything. All the APS, Google, Maps, everything.
And wouldn't airplane mode make it invisible? It's not transmitting anything.

[Hekate]

25. That I am not 100% sure about. What I do know is the average human is so wedded to their smart phone

...that they would be baffled at the idea of turning everything off, and unsure of how to do it. They want to be found.

I know only one person who feels otherwise. One of my brothers, who is so counter-culture you wouldn't believe it, was gifted with a cell phone by a long-time friend who worried about him. (He's over 70 and has had some major health scares. ) Then it turned out she still couldn't get hold of him because, as he growled, he left the damn thing on his kitchen counter where a damn phone belongs.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. I Turned Off Location On Everything...

...where it's an option on both of our phones & tablets.
There might be something running where the OS doesn't even give that option. I don't know what I don't know, I guess.
One benefit, even over WiFi is things run faster & batteries lost longer.

[Wawannabe]

7. Hell. No. nt

[LakeArenal]

8. Nope.

[2naSalit]

9. Doesn't do any good to track me with my phone...

I never take it with me when I go out... since I had to get one of those electronic boards to make phone calls on. It hate the damned thing so I leave it in a pouch hanging in by the door. I use it about twice a week... at home.

[Ms. Toad]

11. You use yours more than i use mine.

I'm only guaranteed to have mine with me 6 days a year.

[2naSalit]

12. It's more than usual right now

because most of my family is in CA in varying degrees of life and death. Had one pass about a month ago and another, my 90+ yo mom, whose life in a facility is not so great right now. Nobody there can go to see her and she would die if she got the virus. She isn't doing well anyway but that would be a horrible end for her. So my sisters and I stay in touch a little more because of that.

[Ms. Toad]

14. Right now, mine is in use more as well.

Not that it's moved - but I am now working from where it mostly lives. And I'm required to forward my office phone to my cell . . .

[dawg day]

10. Oh, I would. I have a really boring life and no secrets

But I have the GPS on all the time when I drive. I've often thought if I ever get suspected for a crime, the police would have an easy time tracking me down.

I think we should really start with easy access to TESTS. It's like everyone's coming up with ideas that in the end would be much more effective if we could all get tested if we have reason to believe we could have been exposed.

[2naSalit]

15. with the WH it's ANYTHING BUT testing...

so any wild-assed ideas will be entertained to avoid the obvious.

[dawg day]

18. You are so right--

Trump obviously doesn't want testing, so all these other "solutions" are proposed-- much more invasive and much less effective.

[2naSalit]

23. Be certain thta he has a reason for it...

revenge and money.

[Initech]

19. No. This is very bad slippery slope.

[paleotn]

22. The Patriot Act....

put us half way down the slope already.

[2naSalit]

24. +1

[Hoyt]

20. I would if convinced best way to save lives.

[paleotn]

21. It's not all that hard to do already....

Verizon, AT&T etc. know exactly where you are...and by extension, the US intelligence services. Or at least they know where your phone is.

[scarletlib]

26. A little too Chinese surveillance style for me.

[El Supremo]

27. What's an app?

On my phone?

[JesterCS]

29. Don't need an app

Govt could do it anytime they want

[Igel]

30. S. Korea also didn't trust China.

Quick stop on flights from China, when people here were still calling such a thing "ineffectual" and even racist. And WHO was pitching a fit at how bad such a thing would be because it was *not* and would not become a pandemic, China was doing such a bang-up job.

PRC pitched a fit. S. Korea shrugged and refused entry.

Result--not so many entry points for the virus. By the time the diddler and ditherer actually imposed his order, we'd had 400k people travel from China. Several points of infection from WA to NY. Probably more. And while we preached "containment" it was spreading because it was still unclear that the thousands of asymptomatic patients that China had identified but not mentioned could actually exist.

Limiting entry points made tracing contacts easier--few places to backtrack to. And greater compliance on the part of the public. Public notices, "Have you interacted with NickB79--he's infected and you need to report in". That would trigger beaucoup lawsuits in the US. And it really helped that most of their cases were from one area, one group that was cohesive and identifiable. And when the group failed to ID some members, criminal charges were filed immediately.

"Privacy". Say what? A lot of rights and steps needed to be taken in an emergency are mutually exclusive. Problem is, very often the power-grubbers don't like returning power and exceptions become more acceptable.

Like it or not, there are different cultural norms and willingness to yield to societal norms for the greater good. Here we have governors who gripe when the excess of ventilators they ordered are seized. It's like telling somebody with a two months' supply of toilet paper in their shopping cart that they really can't have another 5 cases, only to have them complain oppression. "I *am* the common good" seems to be the thinking. Social capital, not so much.

The only way to sell a free phone app would be to say, "We're not going to track you unless it turns out you're at risk because somebody else was infected in the area you were in."

[gulliver]

31. Definitely

It can be anonymized. Would save a ton of time notifying contact chains if we get the virus down to a reasonable number of cases.