With the Digital Green Certificate (DGC) the EU is taking a very important initiative to contribute to reopening our society and economies in the ‘tail’ of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Its main objective is to help reopen intra EEA borders for business and leisure travel, and tourism. The DGC serves as proof of reduced contagion risk by meeting at least one of three requirements: completed vaccination, completed recovery, or recent negative test result. Exceptions for special cases are foreseen.
In addition to known limitations of vaccination and recovery (limited reduction of infection transfer) and tests (‘not yet detectably infected’), other issues complicate realization and operation of a DGC system: timing, trust, privacy, unintended use.
With the main holiday season arriving there is a timing issue, with vaccination campaigns in most EEA countries still months from completion, resulting in local and cross border inequality between vaccinated and not yet vaccinated citizens. It also means more dependency on tests, for locals and even more for visitors.
Operation of the DGC system requires trust in the system, by both officials and citizens. Authorizing exceptions for persons not (fully) meeting DGC requirements is a necessity, but also a rather complex aspect, that could lead to (the suspicion of) misuse.
Reactions to DGC tend towards a consensus on the need and conditional acceptance for cross border travel, where privacy and the access to private and medical information is nevertheless concerns. For other purposes such as access to events, restaurants, cinemas, public transport, etc., opinions appear to be rather strongly divided. However, the implementation of such usage at the national level is simpler than implementation and operation at EEA level, and such other usage is already developing in countries.
One could formulate two theses concerning privacy in this respect:
In leisure and pleasure privacy is often not at the same level as in other activities
More attention is given to users’ privacy, but privacy is not public health friendly
This entry is a slightly adapted copy of a contribution to the interfederal working group for the contract-tracing app Coronalert for Belgium.
Summary
We need urgently an effective, privacy preserving Contact Tracing APP, part of a comprehensive system of Tracing-Testing-Actions
There is still a lot unknown about COVID-19, such as the relative risks of person-to-person, person-air-person, person-object-person transmission, and we need more information and research on this
To be effective, the Contact Tracing APP must
record many proximity events, definitely not only 15 minutes / 1.5 meter
record proximity to objects, e.g. bar, restaurant, sanitary facilities in public places, train or metro wagon, etc., to replace privacy unfriendly and slow paper tracing solutions (Asynchronous and Reverse Contact Tracing)
have geographical awareness (not geographical tracing) in order to allow differences in nature and risk factor between areas to be accommodated
The APP needs to be attractive, user friendly, protect as much as possible the users’ privacy, respect smartphone resources (computing, battery), and must be working all over Europe
Introduction
The author is deeply involved in the standardization of Contact Tracing and more generally Pandemic Monitoring in ETSI (see below)
Submitted are two contributions, this, a more general contribution, and separately, in a few days, a more technical
Background
We have to assume that COVID-19 will be with us till at least mid-2021, more likely till the end of 2021, if everything goes well: even when we have an effective vaccine, it will take months to vaccinate the population . . .
An effective Contact Tracing APP is an essential part of a comprehensive Tracing-Testing-Actions system that is an absolute necessity if we want to avoid further lockdowns and other seriously constraining measures.
There is still a lot unknown about COVID-19, such as the relative risks of person-to-person, person-air-person, person-object-person transmission, and we need more information and research on this.
Basic functions of the Contact Tracing APP
To be effective, the Contact Tracing APP must record many proximity events in a way with maximum protection for users’ privacy. On the Belgian Contact Tracing web site, the following can be found:
In the following we will assume that Contract Tracing devices are smartphones, as this is also the assumption in most developments currently underway; in the near future, however, other devices might be used in combination with or instead of smartphones.
What is Contact Tracing
Contact Tracing is a tool to monitor and record proximity between users that has taken place; this can be used to inform users of risks of possible infection transfer in the recent past; for COVID-19 the recent past is currently estimated as a period of up to 2 weeks.
How does Contact Tracing work
Each user is given a unique identifier in the form of an anonymousContact Tracingtoken.
When two persons, with the Contact Tracing applications active on their devices, are in each other’s proximity for at least a time T and within a distance D (currently T = 15 minutes / D = 1 meter), they exchange their anonymousContact Tracingtokens
When a user is tested positive, e.g. after suspecting COVID-19 symptoms, the user:
uploads a list of anonymousContact Tracingtokens received within a timeframe in which infection could have been transferred
Each user receives regularly lists of anonymousContact Tracingtokens of other users tested positive; when a match is found with anonymousContact Tracingtokens stored, the user:
uploads a list of anonymousContact Tracingtokens received within a timeframe in which infection could have been transferred
request to be tested
How is the privacy of the users protected
Each user is known only by a unique and anonymousContact Tracingtoken
Contact Tracing information, i.e. the received anonymousContact Tracingtokens, are stored on the users’ devices locally
The matching of risks for possible transfers of infection takes place on the users’ devices
This means that the only traceable items are users requesting to be tested . . .
What is needed to effectively mitigate COVID-19 spreading with Contact Tracing
There needs to be sufficient testing capacity able to test and give test results timely
Since Contact Tracing results in significant numbers of potential infected cases to be tested, this means that the number of new infections needs to be relatively small, so that the potential infected cases...
Or, truth and reality versus a show with false impressions and misrepresentations
More and more the written press and even more broadcasters and digital media seem to be in a contest to make a show, and sorry to say, more and more at the cost of common sense, truth and reality.
Below, examples where the show effect is pushing back common sense and misrepresentation results.
In technology
The Boeing 737 MAX issue
The Boeing 737 MAX issue is presented as just an issue of badly designed software relying on a single unreliable sensor.
What is missing in information:
This software is needed to control the consequences of an anomaly in the aerodynamic design. Solving the control system design and software issues solves the problem at most partially. And making the MCAS system standalone, non-integrated was a fatal mistake.
The Porsche electric battery super batteries
Porsche announced electric car charging: 5 to 80% of capacity in 15 minutes; this is presented and received as a fantastic step forward for Electric Vehicles.
What is missing in information:
It would be if the electricity grid to all houses could be upgraded dramatically and quickly: the fast charging requires 400 kW charging power, equivalent to about the maximum power of 12 households . . . So, let’s hope Porsche owners only use the 11 kW / 9 hours chargers at home.
The ‘TESLA Cybertruck’:
TESLA’s Musk made a nice show of this very strong truck and collected lots of orders.
What is missing in information:
There may be some issues with the car, resulting from the tough, difficult to shape stainless steel:
RIGGED and STRONG, has no energy absorption zones, which means danger for the occupants;
With sharp edged shapes, it may be a danger for people outside the car, incl. pedestrians;
Tough, difficult to shape stainless steel risks to bring along manufacturing problems.
In politics, presentation and analysis of the recent UK general election
Presenting election results as a ‘bicycle race’:
1 - ‘Will Corbyn tonight reduce the gap with the Tories?’
2. - ‘The constituency that gives the Tories the majority’
What is missing in information:
Once the ballot boxes are closed, the counting begins, and there is no more possibility to influence the outcome (unless there is election fraud), whatever Mr. Corbyn (or others) may do that evening. Presenting the results of the counting, or better, the time it takes to count the votes in a certain constituency, as a bicycle race is entertaining but misleading.
Hereafter you find some Axioms on (the use of) social networks, with intention to encourage
Further discussions,
Research on the direct and indirect influences and possible abuses, and
Discussion at the political level of suitable measures for at least the EU.
The axioms and opinions or those of the author.
This contribution uses work by Lanting, Lokshina* and Thomas* (* SUNY Oneonta, NY).
The main usefulness of social network for political and commercial use is that of broadcasting.
Social networks merely function as set of address lists, that allow ‘personalized’ messages to be broadcasted among a large number of groups and communities;
It therefore should be considered to apply rules for publishing and/or broadcasting also to information disseminated in and by means of social networks.
The so-called Micro-targeting is not as powerful and less important than is advertised by social networks.
Given that the user entries are not verified and difficult verifiable, the information operated on is not sufficient to micro-target(ing) individual users;
User entries, and additional information ‘sneak-peeked’ by APP or Client software from the smartphone or PC (often without an explicit agreement from the user) is likely to contain information confusing and obscuring perception by augmenting the frontstage: logged data resulting from looking for information for or about others is difficult to distinguish from information relevant to the user Person-X him- or herself;
Instead, looking for communalities among communicates and groups of users may provide some information on interest that may be common to at least part of the community or group;
The effectiveness of dissemination to a group or community is augmented by selective relaying by users within, or more importantly to outside the group or community;
a shotgun approach of dissemination with added reliance on selective relaying by users may be highly effective, possibly as good or better than micro-targeting would be;
see points 5., 6. and 7. hereafter, also for some of the terminology
The performance of search engines may have to be re-evaluated, as search engines have a tendency to return at least for a part information and links to information that is not what a specific user search is looking for, but related information that others have been looking for.
This is illustrated by the ‘Bettina Wulff case’: Bettina Wulff Körner, wife of the former German President Christian Wulff, became the victim of links in Google created by users trying to look for rumours about her past;...
Sir Tim Berners-Lee attacks Tories over misinformation:
The inventor of the World Wide Web has accused the Conservatives of spreading misinformation during the general election campaign.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee described the renaming of a Tory Twitter account as a fact checking body as "impersonation".
"That was really brazen," he told the BBC. "It was unbelievable they would do that."
During a live TV leaders' debate on Tuesday the Tory press office account @CCHQ was rebranded "factcheckuk".
The renaming remained for the duration of the hour-long debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. The Conservatives have said "no one will have been fooled" by the move.
Sacha Baron Cohen: 'greatest propaganda machine in history'
Under this twisted logic, if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his “solution” to the “Jewish problem”.
The following is intended as contribution to the discussion on Democracy and Media in the digital era,
by attempting to identify possible threats to democracy and mapping possible influences of media, ‘old’ as well as ‘new’ or digital, against the threats. The threats identified are not orthogonal but are linked and overlap.
It represents solely the opinions of the author, presented in a somewhat structured way.
Threat to democracy
Characterization
Mitigation mechanisms
Elected dictator
‘the people’ versus the parliamentary democracy rules
Constitution, guaranteed, effective checks & balances, and an independent judiciary
In the 2nd half of 2016, when reviewing research papers on marketing applications of social media at a US university, I raised the need for validity checks on social media accounts.
The researchers were using test populations, semi-randomly selected within certain interest groups among Facebook accounts (by brokers).
I noted that persons could have multiple accounts, could easily give false information about themselves (for different reasons, incl. with criminal intent), and that the social media have very limited tools to verify the fidelity of the accounts (in other words, they are overselling the value of their accounts for e.g. commercial use). For example, I could easily create a 2nd account calling myself Napoleon or presenting myself as a member of an (not well known) Hells Angels branch.
Note: the recent revelation of Senator Mitt Romney’s secret Twitter account "Pierre Delecto" is just a, relatively innocent, demonstration of this.
The discussion following resulted in two things:
The agreement that the research papers would
include a disclaimer stating the limited possibilities for validity checks on social media accounts
use of populations, where suitable, selected from an environment where social control of the members would likely add a level of validity checks (e.g. selecting accounts of persons belonging to a group with likely enough social contacts)
We started an effort to model the discrepancy between the visibility that a social network has on a person’s information and the actual information (this work is ongoing, now including sociological expertise)
About 2 months thereafter, the US elections took place, and the first rumours of the possible role of social media in the election result surfaced. Next, we found ourselves flooded by reactions from people that realized that in the process we had ‘uncovered the dangers’ before the election.
To set the record straight, we did not uncover something others had not seen. Instead, we simply proposed some measures for application in a limited domain - research papers on the marketing use of social media - and initiated work to model the modalities of visibility and validity checks.
Some of us had been worried about misinterpretation and misuse of social media, but we also did not realize the impact that this could have on an election in a country like the US.
Since, the role and possible misuse, abuse of and collaboration by social media have been increasingly important items for news and study; this includes the use of social media to selectively broadcast to large audiences, and in the process bypass legislation applied to broadcasters and press.
Contribution uses work by Lanting, Lokshina* and Thomas* (* SUNY Oneonta, NY)
The need for validity checks on information on social media
In the 2nd half of 2016, when reviewing research papers on marketing applications of social media at a US university, I raised the need for validity checks on social media accounts.
The researchers were using test populations, semi-randomly selected within certain interest groups among Facebook accounts (by brokers).
I noted that persons could have multiple accounts, could easily give false information about themselves (for different reasons, incl. with criminal intent), and that the social media have very limited tools to verify the fidelity of the accounts (in other words, they are overselling the value of their accounts for e.g. commercial use). For example, I could easily create a 2nd account calling myself Napoleon or presenting myself as a member of an (not well known) Hells Angels branch.
Note: the recent revelation of Senator Mitt Romney’s secret Twitter account "Pierre Delecto" is just a, relatively innocent, demonstration of this.
The discussion following resulted in two things:
The agreement that the research papers would
include a disclaimer stating the limited possibilities for validity checks on social media accounts
use of populations, where suitable, selected from an environment where social control of the members would likely add a level of validity checks (e.g. selecting accounts of persons belonging to a group with likely enough social contacts)
We started an effort to model the discrepancy between the visibility that a social network has on a person’s information and the actual information (this work is ongoing, now including sociological expertise)
About 2 months hereafter, the US election took place, and the first rumours of the possible role of social media in the election result surfaced. Next, we found ourselves flooded by reactions from people that realized that in the process we had ‘uncovered the dangers’ before the election.
To set the record straight, we did not uncover something others had not seen. Instead, we simply proposed some measures for application in a limited domain - research papers on the marketing use of social media - and initiated work to model the modalities of visibility and validity checks.
Some of us had been worried about misinterpretation and misuse of social media, but we also did not realize the impact that this could have on an election in a country like the US.
Since, the role and possible misuse, abuse of and collaboration by social media have been increasingly important items for news and study; this includes the use of social media to selectively broadcast to large audiences, and in the process bypass legislation applied to broadcasters and press.
The need for validity checks on information on social media
In the 2nd half of 2016, when reviewing research papers on marketing applications of social media at a US university, I raised the need for validity checks on social media accounts.
The researchers were using test populations, semi-randomly selected within certain interest groups among Facebook accounts (by brokers).
I noted that persons could have multiple accounts, could easily give false information about themselves (for different reasons, incl. with criminal intent), and that the social media have very limited tools to verify the fidelity of the accounts (in other words, they are overselling the value of their accounts for e.g. commercial use). For example, I could easily create a 2nd account calling myself Napoleon or presenting myself as a member of an (not well known) Hells Angels branch.
Note: the recent revelation of Senator Mitt Romney’s secret Twitter account "Pierre Delecto" is just a, relatively innocent, demonstration of this.
The discussion following resulted in two things:
About 2 months hereafter, the US election took place, and the first rumours of the possible role of social media in the election result surfaced. Next, we found ourselves flooded by reactions from people that realized that in the process we had ‘uncovered the dangers’ before the election.
To set the record straight, we did not uncover something others had not seen. Instead, we simply proposed some measures for application in a limited domain - research papers on the marketing use of social media - and initiated work to model the modalities of visibility and validity checks.
Some of us had been worried about misinterpretation and misuse of social media, but we also did not realize the impact that this could have on an election in a country like the US.
Since, the role and possible misuse, abuse of and collaboration by social media have been increasingly important items for news and study; this includes the use of social media to selectively broadcast to large audiences, and in the process bypass legislation applied to broadcasters and press.