Fear & Loathing In My Lounge Room

Will COVID-19 shift society’s view on privacy and trust? 

Are we seeing an inflection point in the battle between privacy and trust?

Sitting in lounge rooms all over the world, people are watching the news and wondering if COVID-19 is going to have a direct impact on themselves and their loved ones. People are developing often deep-seated views as to whether governments are doing enough; reacting too slowly, or are just plain over-reacting to the threat of this pandemic.

My question for you today is whether this world event, which impacts the lives of millions of people, will shift society and individual views on personal privacy.

Fear of Big Brother

An Orwellianesque fear of a dystopian world manipulated by those in power is a normal and understandable thing. Unfortunately, it cannot be denied that many governments have betrayed trust throughout history, including very recently. You do not have to cast your mind back far for examples such as Cambridge Analytica and the alleged misappropriation of data for political and commercial gain springs to mind.

With events like this in our memory, it is almost inevitable that trust in (many) governments has become fragile at best. But what happens when we need governments to step up to the plate and look after the greater public good.

Fear of Technology

A wise mentor of mine, Bertrand Petit, once shared a lesson I will never forget. He said for any new technology to succeed and achieve mass adoption:

The perceived benefit needs to exceed the fear of big brother. 

At the time, Bertrand and I were discussing the rapid advancements in biometrics and specifically facial recognition technology.

Believe it or not, it is possible to architect a biometric system that is completely anonymous. However, there is a distinct leap of faith to get a person who is looking down the barrel of a camera lens to trust that it is not taking their photo but rather just measuring their features. We have not really achieved that yet.

There are some examples in society where the tipping point between privacy and trust has already been achieved. For example, in airports it is now generally accepted that you are going to go through some level of security screening; and for most international flights will include some level of biometric authentication.

One could argue that society has accepted this level of intrusion into their privacy because of the perceived benefit of increased security, or it could simply be the case that people accept it because they have no choice than to comply if they want to fly.

Some technologies are already balancing providing benefits and protecting the privacy of individuals. For example, apps like Moovit and Waze use crowdsourced data to improve the accuracy of their systems. These systems are “opt-in” and the users are trusting these companies with their personal location data in return for an improved location-based navigation service.

Where there is some level of danger, is the wide adoption of fitness tracking apps in society.

For example, I use Strava when I go for my daily run. If someone with malicious intent wanted to study my patterns that person would be able to determine where I live; where I run; and what time of day I typically go for that run. However, I enjoy the benefit of Strava and just take personal action to start and finish my runs away from my house. This is another example of giving up some of my privacy in return for something I benefit from. Strava also has a wider security implication for military operations. Recently it as demonstrated that the exercise habits and layouts of military compounds overseas can easily be mapped based on military personnel’s exercise habits.

Whilst on this point, I think that many people would be surprised at how many apps on their smartphones already have location services enabled. Something to check and ponder. 

Is COVID-19 an Inflection Point?

So, what impact could COVID-19 have in all of this? Looking back at recent history again, less than 12 months ago we saw citizens in Hong Kong going to great lengths to protect their identity during the protests. Full-face coverings were commonplace and people were using single journey tickets on the MTR in lieu of their Octopus cards for an additional layer of anonymity.

Now, wind the clock forward to 2020, and we are seeing governments release apps to assist with contact tracing.

Singapore has released TraceTogether and the Australian government launched COVIDSafe for a similar purpose. They use different underlying technologies but are both designed to help governments track and warn those who may have been in contact with someone who has tested positive to COVID-19.

Both of these apps have seen a very large uptake. People are voluntarily downloading and allowing apps to access their location.

This raises questions on how far this should go. Should this technology be used to trace back the locations of known positive cases to find all the people that have had close proximity to that individual? Should they be used to geofence people that are on quarantine orders or stay home notices to ensure they stay where they are supposed to be? Should it be used to better understand cluster patterns to help “flatten the curve”?

Crowdsourcing apps could also be used during our rebound from COVID-19 as the world tries to adjust to a “new normal."  They could be used to provide useful information on social distancing. For example, Is the bus or train I am about to catch already too full?; Is the supermarket too busy at this moment in time?; and many more similar questions.

All of these technologies/apps (TraceTogether; COVIDSafe; Moovit: Waze; Google Maps; Strava; Uber; Grab; Lyft; and all of their counterparts) could provide very useful information and a big public benefit during a pandemic if used correctly; ethically and with trust. However, all of them also open up opportunities for malintent or even benevolent misapplication. This could include anything from a hoax or fraudulent representation of the app to malicious hacking of datasets. 

Apps such as TraceTogether and COVIDSafe were developed and implemented during COVID-19 but what measures do we have in place to control the use of this data after we get past this pandemic?

Questions and Balancing Acts

The challenging questions and balancing acts we face as a society and as individuals include the following:

1. If you have been in close contact or proximity with a COVID-19 positive person would you want to know?
2. Would you want to know the location of known clusters in your city or country?
3. What level of personal privacy would you be willing to trade in return for increased contact tracing; ability to be quickly notified of contact; or the general ability to “flatten the curve” of a pandemic?
4. If you were COVID-19 positive and then recovered would you want your privacy protected and assured?
5. Who do you trust with your personal location data? Governments? International Organizations? Trusted Third Parties? Commercial companies?

To hear more from Mick Spiers, connect with him on LinkedIn and follow him on Medium.