About the App Last week, Prime Minister (“PM”) Trudeau announced there will be a voluntary nationwide contact tracing app coming soon. According to the PM, this app will alert Canadians if they’ve come into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Ontario will be the first to get this app on July 2. The government emphasizes that it will be important to use during the potential second wave as the Canadian economy slowly enters reopening. How it works? People who test positive upload their results anonymously COVID Alert, the app, using a temporary code that is given to them by a healthcare provider. Using bluetooth technology, the phone records and stores all app users that have come into close contact. If an individual has tested positive, they anonymously upload their results to the app. The app would then notify all close-contacts and may direct them to self-isolate for up to 14 days. The information that is uploaded will then be shared with other users to see if they have been near someone who has tested positive. How anonymous is anonymous? Although the app uses bluetooth technology, privacy remains a concern. Could uses be tracked using bluetooth identifiers? App Specifics from the Government The government considers this app to be low maintenance, as it runs in the background, uses bluetooth, no geotagging or location services of any sort. The federal Privacy Commissioner worked on the app, in an effort to connect cases and better document the spread of the virus. The intellectual property rights for the app will be granted to the federal government. Although healthcare falls within provincial jurisdiction, the pandemic is a national emergency and concern which has led to the federal government playing an increasing role in healthcare. The development and ownership of the app are the federal government’s intellectual property. What are Tech Companies Doing about this? Google and Apple have been limited to creating one COVID tracking app per country. I find this to be helpful as information is synced on one platform for all users in that nation. This provides streamlining the information. There are issues regarding syncing app information with that which exists through Alberta’s pre-existing app. Although this restriction creates a limited marketplace which forces individuals to use one app, I would consider this app to be synonymous with Amber Alerts on our phones, as opposed to multiple GPS app options. What are other nations doing? Many countries across the globe introduced COVID-19 tracking apps to their population post March 2020. While in some countries these apps are voluntary to download (Australia, Japan, and Germany), other countries (India, South Korea) mandated their citizens to download the app. The goal of the app, reiterated by governments, is to track those who have the virus and where they’ve been to caution close contacts and the general public from visiting hotspots. Is this democratic? These are questions that come to mind. The world we live in today people already voluntarily gives out a lot of personal information through cookies, accepting terms and agreements without reading them, and through the usage of social media to store our ideas into the virtual space forever. What makes this app different? Well we’re downloading something onto our device, what would it have access to? In Alberta, the COVID app, ABTrace Together, uses bluetooth as opposed to wifi, and it doesn’t require a phone number or name to be associated with the mobile phone itself. It differs from Australia where it is mandatory to provide these personal characteristics (but the information is said to be stored for only 21 days). In Italy, the app deletes information by the end of the year while keeping it anonymous. The right to delete the data when this pandemic is over, is an important factor to consider. There is a concern of how effectively the centralized system can dispose of personal data, and if users can verify that it has been done. Can an argument be made that this is for the public good? I would agree that this app would be important in knowing where an individual who contracted COVID has visited to ensure that others get tested. But would this be a way to outcast individuals from society and where is this information going to be stored? Can it be used to prejudice individuals from opportunities (e.g. access to medical information for employers, which is something that is currently still protected in Ontario that we aren’t required to share our medical history, decreasing a ground that we cannot be discriminated against). At the start of this pandemic, we have seen that Asian-Canadians experienced more racism. This app is a double edged sword - while it provides the benefit of protecting public health, it can also alienate & amplify stereotypes. Data in this society is crucial. Especially with big data analytics being on the rise. Companies profit from selling information about consumer preferences. So where does this app come in? Data has no boundaries, so can this app be considered domestic or can the data be stored across the world? The threat of IP theft continues as the cyber spy agency warns that foreigners could try to steal intellectual property from Canadians as being guise as COVID-19 relief impacts. My Opinion The fact that this app is voluntary will create a disparity in the results. Evidently, governments should not have authority over what the population should download on their phones. Pierre Trudeau’s comment “There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation” could be updated to say that the state has no place in the cellphones of individuals. However, with the implementation of a voluntary contact tracing app, there needs to be significant uptake for the data to be representative and effective. I do think not everyone who tests positive will be uploading their results in fear that the information will come back to haunt them later in life. I also am skeptical to see how many people will download the app, will it be one person per household or everyone in it? My guess is that there will be very limited usage but that is just an observation based on the individuals I’ve spoken to. This app seems like it could disenfranchise individuals through the government having control over health related data via technology. Primarily, my concern is with data storage. These apps are being developed by Apple and Google. Although it is voluntary, low maintenance and requires little battery, there is a lot on the line. Storing information as such on a grand scale is different from the Health apps that people usually use to track their fitness. This app is one that relates to illness and I don’t know if our world can handle open data about one’s health without having all the answers. By: Karen Randhawa |
Legally BrownThis page is dedicated to providing insights on current events and reflecting on recent legal developments. Archives
January 2021
Categories
All
|