Government is trying to stop Corona with the help of smartphones
Teams are fighting with Corona in India are trying to find the full chain of infection and reach its root. But this work is not easy. In Singapore, the smartphone has proved to be helpful in curbing the corona.
In Dharavi, Mumbai, one a person is found corona infected. How to find out who he came in contact with such a crowded area? Teams fighting with Corona make a list of the people they have come in contact within their own ways, then they also inquire about where those people went, whom they met. A chain leads to Nizamuddin in Delhi, some in a crowded area of the country. This is done everywhere. You can guess how difficult this work is. This thief is a police-like game in which the police are chasing the thief here and there. When a thief is caught, te n more of his companions are found out, then they follow him. But in this way, there is no end to this game.
That is why doctors and engineers in Europe are working with governments to make some such apps which will be able to find out when and whom people of Corona infected meet. That is, the work the teams are doing in India will do the work. The idea is to monitor the infected person with the help of location tracker in the smartphone. This is not a new technology. Big companies like Google use this to tell the traffic situation. But if the government can peep into your phone on the pretext of location, what will happen to the privacy? What is the guarantee that the rest of the data on the phone will not be seen? Such questions are troubling people. Data security is a big issue, especially in Europe. READ MORE
The European Commission is currently discussing with mobile operators how to safely extract only the data needed. In France and Germany, it has been used before for research purposes. “Anonymize and aggregate” technology is used for this. Only the data that is needed in it is taken, such that the data that reveals the location and identity of the user is not saved. After this, it is put in such an aggregator where it is impossible to identify which data came from which user. But in the case of corona infection, it is also important to identify the user. In such a situation, how changes can be made in this technology is under discussion.
The biggest secret is that 80 per cent of the people either do not show symptoms or rarely. In other people, it causes fatal pneumonia and kills them. According to a research report published in the British Journal Lancet, the virus accumulation in the nose and throat of the people most affected by the infection is 60 per cent more than the less afflicted people.
There is another way in which Bluetooth is used. If you use wireless headphones or speakers, then you know how Bluetooth works. A Singaporean company is using this. If the app of this company on people’s smartphone is nugget and their Bluetooth is also on, then they can collect the code from the phone of nearby people. In this way, it can be known whether there are more people gathered in a park or other public place.
It is being used in Singapore and Germany are also considering using it. Its biggest advantage is that all the user’s data is safe, no one can see it from outside. And the biggest disadvantage is that it will work only if people agree to run both apps and Bluetooth on their own. That is if some people gather somewhere in large numbers and their Bluetooth is turned off, then their information will not be available.
The public supported in Singapore. The government had data of such people, whose test turned out positive. Whenever someone came around such a person, the message would reach his phone that you are in the range of a Kovid-19 positive person. In this way, people would become alert and protect themselves. Similarly, location tracker is being used in Israel. The Government of India has also launched the Arogya Setu app, which has installed more than 50 lakh people in just three days.
While technology is helping to fight Corona, rights organizations are concerned that governments will continue to use them even after the Corona crisis is over and citizens will be monitored in this way. 100 human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Privacy International have issued a joint a statement saying, “Governments’ efforts to fight the virus cannot be allowed as an excuse for invasive digital surveillance.” Even after the end of the Corona crisis, if a government keeps an eye on the people, it will be considered a violation of privacy.
Originally published at https://www.mubahisa.in.