Hansel and Gretel and the Virus: Privacy Conscious Contact Tracing

[ Original @ Jaap-Henk Hoepman ]

In an effort to monitor or control the spread of COVID-19 (aka the Corona virus), countries have turned to invasive forms of surveillance based on the location data that mobile telephone operators collect of their users. This is not only happening in China or South Korea, but also in Israel and even Germany, Austria and Italy. The details differ per country.

In this blog (long) post I want to describe the current ways in which location data is being used to fight the spread of COVID-19, discuss why this worries me for the future, and describe some technological options for more controlled, privacy conscious tracking of infected people. (I hesitate to write privacy friendly in this context.)

If you prefer, there is also a pdf version that you can read.

(…)

[ Original @ Jaap-Henk Hoepman ]