Google 'Covi-19 Exposure Logging

[Dirk]

I sure as heck ain't gonna walk around with Bluetooth and Location permanently turned on.
They only get switched on when I need them and get switched off when I've finished.

 

[PK99]

Ummm, lots of criticism of the government for lack of track and trace and at the same time lots of push back against track and trace technology.

Yet another example of oxymoronic public attitudes.

 

[mustang1]

I do not mind having those services turned on, wifi, bt, location etc. The only reason I do not is to preserve battery life. Otherwise, ain't bovered. And being abe to Locate-My-Phone while it's turned off is rather intriguing.

 

[newfhouse]

Ummm, lots of criticism of the government for lack of track and trace and at the same time lots of push back against track and trace technology.

Yet another example of oxymoronic public attitudes.

Is it oxymoronic to expect them to do it properly, with due regard to cost, privacy and effectiveness?

 

[newfhouse]

But it is now.

I have a plain old dumb phone, a JCB builders phone that can survive the abuse thrown at it. I only swtich it on when I want to make a call. I am not inconvenienced one little bit, and certainly do not feel inconvenienced in the slightest.

Best of all, I don't need to start becoming concerned when someone starts sneaking little bits of software onto my device that I'm not happy about - in that regard it's actually very convenient for me indeed.

That is at least a consistent approach, and if it works for you that's good.

 

[AndyRM]

You could ask Alexa, if I had one in a room that I access. There's one in the wife's study, but I never venture there.

You may think it's funny, but I'm not the one being tracked and controlled. i'll be the one laughing as this becomes more and more insidious.

Yebbut, Alexa is literally a tracking device. So there's that.

I agree with you about the insidious thing. Whether anyone will be laughing remains to be seen.

 

[dodgy]

I think "I don't own a smartphone" is this year's Cyclechat "I don't own a TV"

 

[Drago]

I'm not in the habit with walking about with an Amazon alexa, so I'd be interested in hearing how you think it could be used as a tracking device.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

There seems to be some confusion about the Google and Apple Covid-19 API.

It only uses bluetooth, it generates random ids every few mins, the contacts (random ids) are only stored on the phone. After 14 days the phone deletes the details. At no point is any contact information sent or analysed centrally. If you report as having covid-19 then your random ids in the preceding periods are sent centrally. Then other phones can download that information and check against their list of contact random ids. At no point will the other users know it was you, unless you tell them, or they are fairly close friends and would know anyway. It does not need location turned on, nor does it need it.

Bluetooth is very low energy, and that is one thing I do leave turned on, on the phone.

But the technology is not on old Android and IOS phones so I bet a fair percentage of population cant use it anyway. Which begs the question how high a take up can it actually get, even if we are all willing to install an app?

 

[Notafettler]

You may think it's funny, but I'm not the one being tracked and controlled. i'll be the one laughing as this becomes more and more insidious.

Tracked possibly. Controlled? Really how?

 

[Notafettler]

I would suggest everytime you switch your phone on "they" know where you are and the information is held for I think a year.
You only switch the phone on when you want to make a call? So no incoming?

 

[dodgy]

When phones and their contracts/tariffs used to be really expensive years ago, you'd hear of people keeping a phone switched off in their glovebox for 'emergencies', probably never considering the emergency might be someone trying to call them.

 

[Solocle]

I downloaded the latest iOS to get this update. I'm awfully bad at updating, because 16GB of storage doesn't go far these days.

It's just an API. Windows has thousands of functions, only a subset of which you will ever use! I just wish that it wasn't permanently locked to approved apps, because I wouldn't mind having a play with these while waiting for the government to get their app rolled out

Win32 API reference - I wonder how many of you have used the Distributed File System (DFS). No, it's not a sofa sale...

Once the app is rolled out, we've all had to make sacrifices to fight this pandemic. I'd consider it a civic duty to use it around others.

 

[fossyant]

@Drago and his Android 0.1 non-smart phone.

 

[AndyRM]

I'm not in the habit with walking about with an Amazon alexa, so I'd be interested in hearing how you think it could be used as a tracking device.

You don't need to walk about with it for it to track you.