Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations • Hacker News Board

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#71

Post by verroq » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:11 AM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #67

verroq wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Apple will happily deliver all your information to the government when it becomes their legal obligation. Are we so naive to believe that if only we adopted their “privacy conscious” solution, there won’t be less privacy focused solutions preferred by the government? Or that their solution won’t be forced to change to meet their legal requirements?

> “ misunderstood by people who didn’t even attempt to try to understand it (including here on HN).” Your comment is case-in-point the kind of knee-jerk response that I was talking about. Edit: You added the second part after I’d already responded. They developed a good model to do large scale contact tracing in a privacy conscious way. People rejected this with vague suggestions like your comment about how it could…

If they can be forced to change whatever implementation they have by the government then it helps no one. It’s just giving them more information on top of all their existing data they already have on you.

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#72

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #57

malka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot compare individual, and abstract entities such as states. Humans feel empathy. States (and corporations) only follow interests.

>Humans feel empathy. States (and corporations) only follow interests. This is such a bizarre statement to me. States and corporations are made of people. For the states and corporations to lack empathy it means the people controlling them are lacking empathy.

Its bizzare that you doubt it - you mist have been fortunate to never have been harmed by a faceless bureaucracy.

There is an entire genre of kafkaesque literature, where the whole system is so broken that even top officials synpathetic to your plight cannot help you.

There is 'computer says no' situation where a bank clerk wants to give you a mortgage, but cannot because the computer system flagged something, but wont tell you or him what it is.

This is a well known and understood problem, to argue that it doesnt exist is just to live in denial.

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#73

Post by throwaw999 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

jbergler wrote: post #34

The New Zealand app is local storage only (at least that’s how it’s marketed, I’m not sure if this has been validated by a third party) https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/...

And how would you know if there was a backdoor that allows the government to pull anyone's data? Even if the app is validated by reliable third party in current version, there's no mechanism stopping a malicious update in few months.

Once it's mandatory to have such app it's game over. Doesn't matter what algorithm is being used, doesn't matter who developed it. It's insanely easy to abuse this. The government will simply deny there's any sort of backdoor and gaslight people who say otherwise.

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#74

Post by baybal2 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

rusk wrote: post #19

baybal2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can attest this being not the case, unless you are a bank, and can hire gazillion of local barristers to keep up with frequently changing regulatory theatrics. For example, labour laws are faaar from what people imagine of Singapores ultracapitalist image.

I had a friend that worked there for a few years. He was all set to come home for a holiday and management waltzed in and just told everybody holidays were suspended. He still got to come home as he was something of a special case but it was a good story for us ... Also the legend of the bank who called a fire drill then revoked everyone’s security when they were out of the building and told them they were laid off .…

Yes, fire at will is there, on the other hand you have quite potent wrongful termination lawsuits, and a number of hiring quotas which are often enforced.

Singapore is probably the only country which would force a business to hire somebody with clinically severe mental development issues.

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#75

Post by zachberger » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #56

One thing that drives me crazy about this is that Apple and Google partnered to come up with a brilliant Bluetooth solution to contact tracing right at the beginning of the pandemic. It was privacy first, well designed, and it works. It was hamstrung by being opt-in instead of opt-out, relying on state level cooperation and misunderstood by people who didn’t even attempt to try to understand it (including here on HN)…

I agree. I'm visiting Thailand and the locally developed app requires high precision location permissions, the app is constantly running, and the data is all tied to my passport number. It destroys my battery, and it's a complete privacy invasion.

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#76

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

s3tz wrote: post #53

4ggr0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why the focus on governments? Is the same risk not present with private corporations?

The probability you can switch a corporation is much higher.

On the contrary, I have moved 3 countries but can't avoid Google, AWS and the rest of suveliance capitalism.

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#77

Post by gonehome » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

kypro wrote: post #70

gonehome wrote: post #56

One thing that drives me crazy about this is that Apple and Google partnered to come up with a brilliant Bluetooth solution to contact tracing right at the beginning of the pandemic. It was privacy first, well designed, and it works. It was hamstrung by being opt-in instead of opt-out, relying on state level cooperation and misunderstood by people who didn’t even attempt to try to understand it (including here on HN)…

I personally refuse to use any contact tracing because an envitible consequence of its adoption is the idea that mass surveillance is legitimate so long as it can be argued it's keeping people safe. Tech like this is always abused by governments. Just look at how governments are attacking encrypted messaging services today. It would be naive to think same thing wouldn't happen for any popular privacy-first contact tr…

Your comment is another example of dismissing what they did without understanding it.

As a result of this we now have less effective, higher privacy risk implementations in place.

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#78

Post by throwaw999 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

Can't wait until few years down we learn this data has been abused to harass political opponents in some way. Or when someone runs experiment to pull everyone's data and use ML to predict crimes (Minority Report style). It's done, we are never escaping the "sanitary" regime (just as we never got back to world pre-2001 despite extensive war on terror).

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#79

Post by throwaw999 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

kasperni wrote: post #36

jesterson wrote: post #13

That was expected from the very beginning. Government will collect as much data as possible citing medical reasons and then use the data as it pleases saying since we collect, we are free to use as we want (citing again some blah-blah about public benefits). What's surprising is that they disclose it. Perhaps he just wasnt prepared for the question

> Government will collect as much data as possible citing medical reasons and then use the data as it pleases saying since we collect Some governments... We don't all live in a surveillance state.

I'd be happy to learn which governments in your opinion wouldn't abuse such power.

Re: Singapore says contact tracing data may be used for criminal investigations

#80

Post by gonehome » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

verroq wrote: post #71

gonehome wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “ misunderstood by people who didn’t even attempt to try to understand it (including here on HN).” Your comment is case-in-point the kind of knee-jerk response that I was talking about. Edit: You added the second part after I’d already responded. They developed a good model to do large scale contact tracing in a privacy conscious way. People rejected this with vague suggestions like your comment about how it could…

If they can be forced to change whatever implementation they have by the government then it helps no one. It’s just giving them more information on top of all their existing data they already have on you.

> “ If they can be forced to change whatever implementation they have by the government then it helps no one.”

They can’t be easily forced to change the implementation and their implementation reduces the risk of privacy problems. It’s designed explicitly to be effective without increasing that risk and without giving the government any individual’s information.

It’s worth reading the doc I linked.