This past week, my ethics in computing class discussed the use of location data to track COVID-19 patients and the spread of infection. Countries like South Korea and Israel have been using location data from smart phones to view the movements of people who have tested positive for coronavirus. They can then use this data to identify and inform people who may have recently come into contact with these infected people, allowing for more accurate targeting of how the disease is spreading and who to give tests to. Those who live in South Korea can also check a constantly updating map of places recently visited by infected people at https://coronamap.site/.
We've never before had the ability to track almost everyone in the world on the scale we do now. With smart phones, we're all voluntarily carrying a device that is almost constantly reporting our location. You have some ability to turn these settings off (...probably) but many of us like the services that come with leaving that data on, such as maps, calling an Uber, Yelp, etc. This has a lot of terrifying connotations, but one benefit is that it is currently allowing health experts to more accurately map the spread of disease. We're going to have to decide more and more in the future how to weigh privacy against the possible benefits of this kind of large scale data gathering. With the right kind of oversight, is the loss of privacy worth it? Who could we trust to exercise that oversight? Eventually, we're going to have to figure out how to answer these questions.
We've never before had the ability to track almost everyone in the world on the scale we do now. With smart phones, we're all voluntarily carrying a device that is almost constantly reporting our location. You have some ability to turn these settings off (...probably) but many of us like the services that come with leaving that data on, such as maps, calling an Uber, Yelp, etc. This has a lot of terrifying connotations, but one benefit is that it is currently allowing health experts to more accurately map the spread of disease. We're going to have to decide more and more in the future how to weigh privacy against the possible benefits of this kind of large scale data gathering. With the right kind of oversight, is the loss of privacy worth it? Who could we trust to exercise that oversight? Eventually, we're going to have to figure out how to answer these questions.
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