U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

Need good specs and app ecosystem but I love this.

I read an article the other day explaining that's one of the methods South Korea used to control the spread of the virus.

What if information could be revoked? Imagine the government suspects me in some investigation. I give them a key that gives them all information about me and my recent activities. Then once some period elapses, I revoke that key and they no longer have any of that information. Nor, of course, were they able to copy or independently distribute it in any way when they had it.

This is probably pure fantasy, but if there was any way this scenario would be possible, I think it would go a long way to assuaging people's concerns. As it is, we know data can be copied and distributed without permission. That's kind of been the underlying problem of spies throughout the history of the world.

I think this concept is where Stephenson was going with Snow Crash, but his scenario for this seemed like fantasy as well to me.

Meanwhile in Taiwan:

in 2004 the authorities planned how to respond to this crisis, and got the necessary rights. Then they spent 15 years not abusing these rights, and now used them effectively (including phone data).

The middle part is important there, the one about "15".

> But if the allowable uses and time-frame were set into law

They were with the Patriot Act, though. And many of its provisions are still being routinely extended.

The problem is that once all this data starts flowing in, government agencies who want to use it will find loopholes to apply it in scenarios it wasn't intended to be used, but which the law didn't anticipate. And then, once it proves useful for something important, they'll point at it as the evidence that it's too useful to allow to expire. Again, we've seen that with Patriot Act - originally passed solely to "combat terrorism", DoJ is now justifying their asks for extensions by, among other things, the need to fight child porn. Which means that any politician who votes to not extend it, risks being painted by their opponents as aiding and abetting sexual predators.

This has all the potential to be an order of magnitude worse. A real-time location database for practically every person in US would get all law enforcement agencies salivating immediately. And worse yet, it will actually let them solve otherwise unsolvable crimes etc, and set up a showcase. Probably terrorism and/or child porn again, because it pushes so many emotional buttons at once. And who would dare say that it's not justifiable, because child porn is less of an issue than coronavirus? More importantly, who would get elected after saying that?

That's the real danger of creeping police state - it works more or less as advertised, and it's just too easy to ignore all the "abstract" stuff about freedom and privacy (until you're its target - but most people don't expect to be one, and most of them won't be). So every inch that it gets is nearly impossible to wrestle back.