Hmmm, this post is going to make me some enemies, but so be it.
I read this week that the Canadian smartphone app, meant to warn users if they have been in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19, is now in beta testing by the federal Canadian Digital Service agency.
The testing is designed to look for bugs and other problems. “We’re testing the app, not you”, the agency’s notice reportedly advises. The distinction is lost on me.
I am more than a little uncomfortable with this development. It is the tip of a very large ethical iceberg that its developers would rather not talk about. There are undoubtedly those who will say it is a great use of technology. I am inclined to substitute abuse for use.
As I understand it, the “COVID Alert” app will track phones’ locations relative to each other using digital identifications unique to each phone. Users would receive an alert on their phone if they have recently been near a person who volunteers that they have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Note: The agency says the app will send false alerts just to make sure the system work. Does anyone see the flaw in that plan?
The fact that the success of the app depends on people volunteering to be flagged as having tested positive may well be its undoing. I find it hard to imagine that many people will do so.
Setting aside that factor for the moment, the bigger issue here is the intersection and collision of individual civil rights with the proverbial greater good. I fear we are about to open a door that can never again be closed.
The precedent we are setting here is a dangerous one. A legal exception is being made to our fundamental right to privacy. You may argue that extraordinary circumstances apply that make it worthwhile. But that is just the old the end justifies the means rationale.
You may also argue that this is all done on a strictly voluntary basis so we should not be worried. However, once that door is edged open even an inch, there will be a crowd of tech companies lining up behind it to pry it further open every day.
Once you bend a civil right, you can never straighten it out again. But it does become much easier – for the private or the public sector – to justify bending it a bit further the next time a perceived threat comes along. Eventually the civil right becomes a phantom that exists in principle but not in practice.
I have been mixing my metaphors in this post. But here is the important one. The COVID-19 alert app is potentially the Pandora’s Box of our times from a civil rights perspective. If you know the myth, you know that once the contents of the box are released, the results are irreversible.
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Tags: Civil rights · COVID-19 · COVID-19 Alert App · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Pandora's Box · right to privacyNo Comments