You can't put it back in the box. Once an abusable capability exists, it will be abused.

The most effective time to try to create a pervasive surveillance system is when people are afraid.

Also, there's no evidence that a more invasive system is "more effective". If a privacy-preserving system is equally effective, there's no valid argument. And in any case, if a privacy-preserving system is effective enough to get community transmission under control (bringing R below 1), that may suffice.

Further, the more invasive might be less effective because less adopted.

If my memory serve, we are talking about a government that would love to kill or backdoor crypto - all in the name of "stop the terrorists" and "protect the children", arguments that are also about saving lives.

People worry about their own privacy, but they should worry about the protection of people engaged in politics - not (only) political activists but (also) "professional" politicians.

These data is an absolutely fabulous weapon to ruin the public credibility of, say, a competitor for the next poll. Or you can use them for blackmail. If you can't blackmail your opponent directly you can always look at what their family members are doing.

The possibilities are so numerous that it's hilarious. The irony is that the MPs who vote those laws seem not to be aware they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Privacy is a human right. Before given up on it, you have to make sure that a) it is temporary and b) the benefits are real (is it an effective way of preventing something bad etc.)

Can you give a couple simple examples of the kinds of things might be revealed through loss of privacy in such an app, that would be very damaging?

Affairs.

Iron-clad proof a minister violated some lockdown restrictions.

The location of someone hiding from an abusive partner.

The new name of someone in a witness protection programme.

The identity of a defendant in an important but secret trial.

I'm not sure how any of these are not already searchable / discoverable by someone abusing the cellular system that already knows phone locations all the time?

That's utterly broken logic. If you are doing well with a missing finger on your right hand, certainly it won't bother you if we chop the same finger of your left hand ?

Agreed. A lot of the privacy hullaballoo I read on HN feels like tin-foil-hattery. Who cares what kind of app you have tracking your GPS on your phone, when every surveillance camera in London knows exactly where you have been?

If you want real privacy, it has to come from getting the right privacy aware, privacy understanding, people in power. Anything short of that wont make a whit of difference.

Don't forget anti-terror laws were used to ensure people were putting the right things in the right bins... (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3333366/Half-of-coun...)

So, given the existence of a privacy-preserving option, it is extremely dubious to be pushing a privacy-destroying option for the sake of a small amount of extra data and flexibility.

The harm that a developed surveillance state can do is incredible. See China. We need to balance saving lives from corona with potentially saving lives or quality of lives from privacy abuse. It's a slippery slope argument and those are always hard to discuss as we're discussing potential future abuse.

In this case however it's a reasonably safe and effective system vs an pretty unsafe but slightly more efficient system. To my mind there's a clear winner there.

I think you can look at it another way, in terms of what can be achieved. Whether or not I think it's good that every pub I want to go to is shut, it's obvious that the government have the ability to compel them to do so. If the government want social distancing they have lots of tools to make it happen.

They have far fewer tools to make a contact tracing app happen, when that app needs to be voluntarily installed by everyone. So doing things like turning it into a surveillance system (even if it's just because they want better Covid data) when other countries aren't, is just increasing the risk that the public turn it down and the whole thing fails.

And "this app is bad and you shouldn't install it" can spread really, really fast. A few weeks ago my extended family wanted to do a video call and someone suggested everyone install House Party. The day we were going to do our first call some weird tweets went viral saying that app was hacking people's banking apps and other accounts. I'm not sure what came of that, the accusation makes no sense, but our use of House Party was cancelled because there was something on Facebook saying don't download it and how are non-technical people meant to distinguish it really when basically everything you can click through to on Facebook is a scam?

If something like that happens then you really need credible people to be able to push the messaging that this app is vetted, people can trust it, it's safe. If all the background noise is about privacy and similar concerns, then negative messaging can get a lot of cut through with nothing pushing back. I'm pretty certain nobody in that family chat who saw those Facebook posts will ever install House Party, and I'm pretty sure a few well placed Facebook posts going viral with no credible voice telling them otherwise could stop them installing any contact tracing app as well.

> They have far fewer tools to make a contact tracing app happen

They can get businesses to enforce the requirement for them. Want to enter the grocery store? Be prepared to show a QR code from the tracking app, or you can’t go inside.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Given the past record of our beloved governments, I'm certain that, as War on Terror, this will persist forever, to also protect children, you know.

It just amazes me how short sighted people are, more so because, I assume, it's mostly people from USA...

Governments have a difficult time giving up powers once they have them. So even if it is morally right to give the government extra privacy infringing powers to save lives today, it is not morally right to compromise the privacy that generations of citizens who come after us will need in order to exercise their right to self governance later.

The best of all worlds is where the government says, "look, our responsibility is to look out for your health AND your other fundamental rights, and so we need this, but we want it to respect your privacy too". Which is what governments who choose DP-3T are saying.

Shutting down the economy cost lives too. It may even cost more lives than the virus.

If we end up with a world-wide fatality of 1% (relatively conservative), how would shutting down the economy even approach this?

It's a great question, but over the last couple weeks, it's clear (from a number of topics) that 95% of HN would rather have completely perfect privacy more than safety. It seems that counter to things like freedom of speech, there are no qualms about infringing upon other humans when it comes to the right to privacy.

Yes, that's correct. I can do things like isolate myself and my family to protect ourselves (and others) from things like covid 19, but I can't reach out and make governments and business respect my privacy. In the longer scale, I think you and I are more at risk from loss of privacy than I am from a virus that, while nasty right now, is likely to be over soon.

There's no evidence that it's likely to be over soon, in fact, most suggests the opposite. Also, it's either completely ignorant or just highly asinine to suggest anyone besides yourself is at more risk from loss of privacy than the virus.

> How do we judge one not worth the risk, while the other is?

Individually: you can sell your privacy for some temporary security. But you can't sell mine.

Governements will abuse anything, and will never let a good crisis go to waste. It's not a question of if, but when. We still have the "temporary" Patriot Act in the US, while countries like France still live in a "temporary" permanent state of emergency years after it was "temporarily" instaured.

I do not trust google - but I trust government even less, because when caught with their hand in the cookie jars, at least companies have to clean their act, or face loss of customers.

Governments, not so - due to the rigidities preventing immigration.