Be Especially Careful With Contact Tracing Apps
As with nearly every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is still a lot we don’t know about effective contact tracing. At this point, contact tracing apps should collect a lot of information about you and share it with other organizations. This is not conspiratorial paranoia; collecting and sharing your information is exactly what these apps are supposed to do. The problem is that it will be difficult to know exactly how these companies store and use this data.
For example, Jumbo Privacy recently discovered that North Dakota’s COVID-19 contact tracing app, Care19, shares user data with Google, Foursquare and other companies . This is in direct conflict with the application’s original privacy policy, which stated that the application will not transmit data without the user’s consent. Developer Care19 Proud Crowd has updated their privacy statement in response to Jumbo Security’s findings, but we’ll likely see more stories like this in the future.
Proud Crowd provided Fast Company with a statement to explain itself:
“The Care19 app user interface clearly indicates the use of Foursquare on our Places Nearby screen in accordance with the terms of our agreement with Foursquare. However, our privacy policy does not currently explicitly mention this use. We will work with our government partners to clarify our privacy policy. It is important to note that our agreement with Foursquare does not allow them to collect data from Care19 or use it in any form other than simply identifying nearby businesses and returning it to us. ”
While this sounds good on paper – so much so that Jumbo Privacy might even rethink its “don’t use this app” recommendation – this whole ordeal is a great reminder that you are relying on trust about how your location data can be used by these applications. … They may be designed to perform a task that inherently keeps you safe and happy, but that doesn’t mean they should all get free access to your device. It’s possible that those who create them will mess things up, and this has many privacy implications.
You can also use a tracker blocker app like Jumbo Pro or revoke specific app permissions, but preventing all these contact tracing apps from being tracked will not achieve the goal. You may just as well simply leave them out if you want to prevent any possibility of distribution, sale, or leakage of your information.
Whatever your personal stance on installing these apps, we strongly encourage you to think a little about any contact tracing app you are considering before taking the plunge. Do your research and see if it effectively balances user privacy with the broader public need (at least for the moment) for recording where people have been so you or others can be better informed about the potential COVID-19. excerpts.
Or don’t install the app at all. Analog contact tracing, as sophisticated as it is, works well enough that you don’t need to potentially share your location with companies interested in advertising to benefit from it.