Opponents of citizen monitoring say it gives huge power to governments • Meanwhile, India and Singapore have found a solution that Google and Apple have also decided to adopt

• Photo: AFP

One way of combating the spread of the Corona virus is by tracking citizens through smartphones, as the GSS and the Israeli Ministry of Health do. Many Western countries - unlike China, South Korea and Israel - are vehemently opposed to such surveillance. 

At the Reuters news agency, they tried to figure out how to technologically produce a situation where people would defend themselves and not be exposed to the Corona virus issues, without a huge array of big brother like China, where the state knows everything about you. Here are some of the results.

Local connection between devices and not one large database

One of the solutions offered in this article is an intermediate way offered in Singapore and India, where Bluetooth-based apps are used, much like Google's Apple joint application, which does not directly identify and retain citizen data. This is an encrypted system that is kept for a short time on the devices connected to the app, and the advantage of this method is that there is no precise location based (GPS) traffic tracking.

This is a kind of temporary private calendar, which the app keeps on the device. Once a patient becomes positive about Corona and adds the information to the app, the data is synchronized - and anyone who has been in contact with him within 14 days will receive an alert. In this way the anonymity of the corona carrier is not kept or stored in the database.

The main drawback of the method, so according to Reuters, is the need for a very large public in a specific geographic area to download the app for it to be effective and to register close relatives of other users in the environment. That is, public trust is needed in a system that truly respects privacy and the cooperation of all citizens in one place, including those in Corona, in order for the venture to be implemented.

Download - currently only as a recommendation

Meanwhile, in Singapore and India, too, it seems the public is worried about the country and not downloading these apps. TraceTogether, the app developed by the Singapore government, has taken down 20 percent of the country's residents. On the other hand, the Government of India's Aarogya Setu app has downloaded only 50 million of the 500 million mobile phone holders in the country.

It should be noted that in both countries the applications are currently not required to be downloaded, although in India Prime Minister Nardanara Modi has recommended it and the government is promoting the media distribution with great vigor. In contrast, in Singapore even the first clues are seen that the government will force the application to be downloaded on its residents in the event that the Corona crisis continues and will hamper economic activity.

In spite of these concerns in Australia, Latin America and some European countries, similar applications are being developed and addressing the ethical and governmental questions that surveillance measures, at various levels after the citizen movement, can be effective without violating the human right to private life.

Another issue noted in the news agency is population gaps in access, and that countries of different cultures still constitute a barrier to building one universal app that will be used and monitored worldwide.