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For a year now, I have argued that the @EU_EDPS, the #PeppPT & #DP3T movements hijacked narrative on #contacttracing apps long before science & risks were known. In doing so, they limited role of technology in managing the pandemic effectively 1/
Here I explain how GDPR drafters had pandemics in mind when they drafted the Regulation. And how both these movements went well above and beyond the GDPR.
https://leiserpress.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/some-contrarian-thoughts-on-the-deployment-of-contact-tracing-apps.pdf
https://leiserpress.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/some-contrarian-thoughts-on-the-deployment-of-contact-tracing-apps.pdf
A common narrative from both groups was that there was no popular support for big tech & tracking to help manage pandemic because, you know, we can't trust them w/ data protection rts. My issue w/ both these groups is transference of own visions abt privacy onto general public.
Now this study from @STWorg et al examines public attitudes to contact-tracing apps under variety of conditions & variables. Results appear very much aligned w/ my own thinking on this = privacy movements were out of line w/ views of general public. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245740#sec001
Some takeaways: "As shown in Fig 6 (bottom panel), people are very aware of how much control they have over their data in the different scenarios. Virtually all participants recognized, for example, that the severe scenario offers no control over people’s personal data"
Most important finding is high overall level of endorsement for both tracking and immunity passports: "A majority of people supports immunity passports...even greater majority endorses tracking-based policies..."
"... This high level of endorsement stands in contrast to people’s commonly professed concern for their privacy"
I.e. people will willingly give up some of their privacy if they calculate that it might serve some common good.
I.e. people will willingly give up some of their privacy if they calculate that it might serve some common good.
This has been overlooked in virtually all privacy and data protection narratives about contact-tracing. The normal rules go out the window when there is a common objective - stopping a public health emergency.
This isn't anything new. Remember that EU citizens 'generally endorse reuse of health data for common good, although they are concerned about the exploitation of that data through commercialization' https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851019300818?via%3Dihub
"Overall, acceptance of tracking technologies was quite high, with a baseline at the initial test of around 70% for the mild and Bluetooth scenarios, and above 60% for the severe scenario".
"People trade off the perceived harms from the policy under consideration (tracking apps or immunity passports) against the perceived risk from COVID-19: increased risk perception increases policy acceptance.
People's attitudes to tracking is unpoliticized, but "people are relatively unconcerned about where the data are stored, but they do care about how long the data will be stored for."
"The most important driver of acceptance of both policies was a variable unrelated to perceptions of immediate risks and harms; namely, people’s trust in the GOVERNMENT’s intention or ability to secure people’s privacy and to manage access to the data.
My takeaway remains the same - the public's attitudes to tracking (de-centralized or centralized) was largely irrelevant. It was how long this data is stored - which could have been legislated for (as the GDPR calls for). See blog post above.
TL;DR: privacy and data protection maximalists got in the way of effective technology-based tracking that also had broad support from the general public.
