As governments in Canada look to mobile apps to speed up the COVID-19 contact tracing process, B.C.’s Privacy Commissioner says that for it to be effective, its important that people trust the process.
Speaking on NL Newsday, Michael McEvoy says a requirement to submit personal information to the government like is being done in Singapore, is a concern.
“It’s basically giving the state everybody you’ve associated with. It may be one of the reasons why in Singapore, the uptake on that app is only been about 15 per cent of the population – not enough to really be of any value and any use.”
McEvoy also cautioned that these apps need to have a specific purpose for things to work as intended, adding that any data gathered should only be used to help track and beat COVID-19.
“It can’t be used for anything else because for any of this to work, its got to have the public’s trust, and you know to look to facebook and Cambridge Analytica [and the concerns there], the public’s trust to some extent has been undermined in this stuff,” McEvoy said.
However, he cautions that even if people trust the process and buy into these contact tracing apps, it will need to be paired with other measures like physical distancing and frequent hand washing, as well as staying home if you are sick.
“If you find that you were in contact with somebody over the last two weeks, you [may not] know exactly when, you [may not] know exactly where, so what do you do with that information?” McEvoy said. “Contact tracing apps are not a silver bullet.”
B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry previously told media that the province is aware of privacy concerns with these apps, noting that the province is doing research on the apps that are out there, to see what might work here.
“One of the things that I’ve found is that there are a whole lot of people who have have apps that we need to sort of sort through, and the federal government, the health agency of Canada has done quite a bit of that work,” Henry said. “So, we are looking to see what could be helpful for us.”
Alberta has released a tracing app of its own to help with COVID-19 contact tracing, however officials in that province say no one would be forced to use the app.
