[cooperation-wg] Covid-19 and Internet applications

While most of the press is about washing hands and infection rates and self-isolation and deaths there are other stories.

This following story from the Guardian quotes our colleague Alexander Isavnin of the Internet Protection Society on what is happening in Russia.

<< One attempt has already sparked a backlash: a clumsy mobile application developed by Moscow’s city government to monitor coronavirus patients’ movements. The app, called Social Monitoring, was discovered last week in the Google Play store and requested access to a user’s location, camera, telephone, sensors and other data to ensure they were complying with quarantine.

Social Monitoring quickly disappeared from the online store. Eduard Lysenko, the head of Moscow’s Department of Information Technologies, called the application a “test version” released for professional feedback. It would be re-released, he said, and those opposed to installing the app on their phones could opt to receive a temporary device instead.

Lysenko also said that Moscow is ready to roll out QR codes that would require Muscovites to register online and reapply each time they sought to leave the house. Citizens will be required to “register, fill out a simple form and a corresponding code will be generated, which can either be put on a telephone, sent by mail, or printed,” he said. Those codes could then be checked by police officers and others with access to a central database. >>

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/02/cybergulag-russia-looks-to-surveillance-technology-to-enforce-lockdown

There have been rumours that France is thinking about doing something similar.  Though the CNIL has been been making its views known. (in French of course)

https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/250320/surveillance-de-l-epidemie-la-cnil-met-en-garde-le-gouvernement

Meanwhile Politico reports that 

<< European researchers think they have found a way to use mobile phones to contain the spread of coronavirus — and help people avoid infection — without sacrificing the region's high standards on privacy.

Eight countries have taken part in the project that will, on Wednesday, release the code for an app that analyzes Bluetooth signals between mobile phones to detect users who are close enough to infect each other, … >>

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-cracks-code-for-coronavirus-warning-app/

At RIPE76 in the IoT session there was a presentation about the privacy implications of sewage testing for illicit drugs. It now appears that Dutch scientists have been able to identify the Covid-19 virus in sewage. Another way of detecting the disease in a community?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/coronavirus-in-sewage-portended-covid-19-outbreak-in-dutch-city

There have also been reports that “smart thermometers” - ones that "phone home”, specifically those from Kinsa?  - appear to offer potential to monitor the spread of the virus.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/02/this-smart-thermometer-could-help-detect-covid-19-hot-spots.html

I believe that in the past insights have been gained about the spread of other infections - seasonal flu? -  from social network data and search engine queries. I would expect stories about those aspects in due course.

Gordon