Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring • Hacker News Board

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#41

Post by ghaff » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #20

ShorsHammer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love it. The amazing shift in online rhetoric that praises authoritarianism is scary. Imagine this being rolled out for the flu.

Authoritarianism is occasionally useful when collective action is necessary to prevent a major disaster. Individual people have a tendency to take everything they can, like in cases where entire stores have been bought out of meat or toilet paper or cleaning supplies. An authoritarian approach of dictating what a person can and cannot do at a very fine-grained level can prevent these things from happening. For exampl…

The thing is that I suspect that the problem is mostly not (yes, with some widely publicized exceptions) that you have people individually buying hundreds of rolls of toilet paper or dozens of eggs, but LOTS of people figuring that a bit of buffer stock in the house can't hurt because who knows what the future will bring.

I know in my case I did a couple shopping trips before the panic buying started. I bought nothing at all out of the ordinary but I did stock my house up a bit more than average on various things. You multiply that by the majority of people and it's not hard to clear out a store.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#42

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

bobbyd3 wrote: post #34

lifeformed wrote: post #32

I'm in Taiwan in day 6 of home quarantine right now. We get a call every morning to check up on our health. I don't mind it, it's a simple and effective method and it gives me confidence in the government and society, knowing that everyone is taking the situation seriously. Once I'm out of quarantine, I can feel comfortable being outside living a normal life, knowing that all known potential carriers are contained.

How did they get your information for the daily call? Just curious. Is everyone required to submit contact information? Or did they already have the required contact info for daily health checkups?

[deleted]

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#43

Post by RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

bobbyd3 wrote: post #34

lifeformed wrote: post #32

I'm in Taiwan in day 6 of home quarantine right now. We get a call every morning to check up on our health. I don't mind it, it's a simple and effective method and it gives me confidence in the government and society, knowing that everyone is taking the situation seriously. Once I'm out of quarantine, I can feel comfortable being outside living a normal life, knowing that all known potential carriers are contained.

How did they get your information for the daily call? Just curious. Is everyone required to submit contact information? Or did they already have the required contact info for daily health checkups?

When you enter, you're required to fill out a health declaration form, which asks for your contact info. IIRC, it's not cross-referenced with immigration database. Naturally, some were not filled out correctly, maliciously or not.

Of the reported cases, police got involved to track down said persons, and they were fined depending on the severity of the infraction. I don't know if the form DB is now cross-checked with the immigration DB.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#44

Post by alkonaut » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

It's good that everyone sees and learns what these systems are and what they can be used for. Hopefully everyone can figure out what they can be used for, if used for the wrong purposes.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#45

Post by barkingcat » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

bobbyd3 wrote: post #34

lifeformed wrote: post #32

I'm in Taiwan in day 6 of home quarantine right now. We get a call every morning to check up on our health. I don't mind it, it's a simple and effective method and it gives me confidence in the government and society, knowing that everyone is taking the situation seriously. Once I'm out of quarantine, I can feel comfortable being outside living a normal life, knowing that all known potential carriers are contained.

How did they get your information for the daily call? Just curious. Is everyone required to submit contact information? Or did they already have the required contact info for daily health checkups?

There is a national registry - if you have a birth certificate, if you have a passport, if you file taxes, if you've used a government service (ever), if you visited dentist/doctor at any point in your life, they have linked those records.

If you are visitor and if they need to, within a few hours of landing at an airport and arriving at your destination, you will get a phone call at your destination location/hotel, etc if the government needs to find you -

Have you ever wondered why you fill out those landing / immigration cards that they give you on the plane? For the US and Canada, those are only formalities. For Taiwan, the cards get scanned in and then the authorities will call the number you put on that card to see if you're there or if you've checked into the hotel, for example.

In regular times, this system is mostly used for things like catching overseas males dodging conscription for example, but the system is active already for times like these when it's critical to know where a person has gone after they leave the airport.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#46

Post by alkonaut » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

mmhsieh wrote: post #7

Taiwan doing this = effective. china doing this = creepy. however, probably necessary in both cases. perhaps a rhetorical cease-fire globally would benefit us all.

> Taiwan doing this = effective. china doing this = creepy

That's the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy. You can have at least a little trust in a democracy to do the right thing when it does the necessary evil.

This pandemic isn't a reason to take the pressure of china when it comes to human rights. Quite the opposite.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#47

Post by alkonaut » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

sailfast wrote: post #35

Why would such a mechanism of control incentivize those that feel sick to report their symptoms? Why would one submit to control at this level? This sound similar to ankle-bracelet-level Parole / house arrest structures. In fact, I'd prefer that because it would only be providing a single source of sensor data to the government instead of possibly making my entire phone and location history accessible.

It works well enough if everyone considers the best of their society as more important than their own freedoms. So it's pretty easy to extrapolate where this might work and where it would be fruitless.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#48

Post by RaoulP » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

I’m in precautionary quarantine in Taipei right now, after arriving from a Level 3 country some days ago.

As a tourist, I had to provide a phone number of a contact person in Taiwan upon my arrival. They call the number and confirm it works before you even leave the CDC checkpoint at the airport. You also self report your health condition. I then stood in line for 4 hours to get a special taxi to my place of quarantine. Taking public transport is forbidden. Before finally getting into the taxi, I was sprayed all over (including the bottom of my shoes) with with I presume was disinfectant.

I was later requested to add a police officer on the social media platform Line, through which I’m now asked daily how I’m feeling, and offered help if I need anything. However I don’t think they can track my position through it.

There’s a stall selling cheap SIM cards for tourists at the airport, but it’s past the CDC checkpoint, so no tourist has a local number to provide. Perhaps they should move it upstream (and just provide the cards for free), if they want this “electronic fence” to be watertight. I’m not sure but I think I could technically go wherever I pleased right now.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#49

Post by x0ul » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

bobbyd3 wrote: post #34

lifeformed wrote: post #32

I'm in Taiwan in day 6 of home quarantine right now. We get a call every morning to check up on our health. I don't mind it, it's a simple and effective method and it gives me confidence in the government and society, knowing that everyone is taking the situation seriously. Once I'm out of quarantine, I can feel comfortable being outside living a normal life, knowing that all known potential carriers are contained.

How did they get your information for the daily call? Just curious. Is everyone required to submit contact information? Or did they already have the required contact info for daily health checkups?

My Taiwanese friends told me about this a few weeks ago, they said that the cell phone is issued by the government.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#50

Post by vkou » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #31

vkou wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the flu caused the kind of havoc to our medical systems that COVID is causing, I'd want this rolled out for the flu, too.

flu already was wreaking massive havoc, it's just a cost we've internalized. Like driving.

Nobody who is working in the ICUs in the outbreak areas shares that opinion. It's not a normal flu season for them. It's not business as usual.