So the government wants to know with whom I came into contact by tracking my mobile phone...!!
What an invasion of privacy!! What business is it of theirs?
The government is saying that to help tackle the spread of COVID-19, it needs to know if I came into contact with people infected with the virus. And it wants to do it with an app on my mobile phone.
We are assured our location won't be tracked, the resulting data will only be stored on the phone itself, and only health officials will have access to the data if they need to know with whom an infected person came into contact.
Sounds reasonable enough, doesn't it?
Well, let's see...
First, the location - can they achieve their purpose without tracking my location? Where I am does appear to be irrelevant. If I come into contact with an infected person, the app will tell health officials my name and phone number, and presumably the names and numbers of all the other people who came into contact with the infected person for 15 minutes or more. Whether I was at the supermarket or the beach or on a tram or just walking on the street does seem irrelevant; the important thing is the contact.
Second, the data. Can they achieve their purpose without uploading all the interaction information to a central server somewhere? If a person has tested positive for COVID-19, health officials can simply retrieve the data relevant to his interactions from his phone - so there is no need for bulk upload of data.
Are there other issues? Well, yes. Security for one. Bluetooth is known to have some vulnerabilities (as does every other piece of software). Most of these seem avoidable if the device is kept up to date with system updates, by changing default passwords and PINs, and by not accepting Bluetooth connections from devices we don't recognise.
What about storage space for all that information? The app is only going to store a name and phone number (encrypted of course) from devices with which it has been close to for 15 minutes or more. It doesn't take a lot of space to store a name and a phone number. Even if you catch a train to and from work every day, the app will store about one or two dozen names and phone numbers on each journey - still not a lot of space required. And we are assured the data will be used only for identifying people who may have been exposed to the virus.
So is it OK for the government to track our contact with other people during this COVID-19 crisis?
It seems reasonable.
UPDATE 27 April 2020 - more than 2 million Australians have downloaded the COVIDSafe app in the first couple of days of its release. That's quite an impressive number, but for the required 40% of the population, it means about another 8 million people need to download it. Maybe less if you discount children who would only accompany their parents on outings, elderly people who don't leave their nursing homes (they have other monitoring measures in place), and any others who are exempted.
Some issues have been raised by users. A common one is the rejection of valid mobile numbers. The number is entered in the international format (+61) so omit the leading 0 and don't put any spaces (e.g. 412345678 rather than 0412 345 678).
It doesn't work on older phones. That could be a problem - and is a problem for lots of people trying to run other recent apps, particularly media and entertainment apps. Is the expectation that no-one will have a phone older that 3-4 years? Does that seem reasonable? Many of the people who would be most vulnerable to the virus would be financially disadvantaged and not be able to afford the latest phones. This is an issue for this virus-tracking app in particular, and a social equity issue in general.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Climate Change... We're Screwed !!
So... COVID-19 lock-downs have reduced travel so much that CO2 emissions have fallen a huge amount ! Air travel is virtually non-existent (where have they parked all the planes??) and road travel has taken a huge hit too.
This has resulted in the largest-ever recorded fall in CO2 emissions - that's about 1.6 Billion tonnes of CO2, or 4% of global emissions. Very impressive !!
Except that - according to carbonbrief.org - to achieve the required cap on temperature rises to avert a climate catastrophe (i.e. 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels), we need an annual reduction in CO2 emissions of 6% for the foreseeable future (until 2050?).
How are we going to achieve these reductions? It seems we need to put the world economy on hold for about 4-5 months every year !!!
So to avoid blasting ourselves back to the stone age via catastrophic climate change, we have to blast ourselves back to the stone age via economic ruin.
We're screwed.
This has resulted in the largest-ever recorded fall in CO2 emissions - that's about 1.6 Billion tonnes of CO2, or 4% of global emissions. Very impressive !!
Except that - according to carbonbrief.org - to achieve the required cap on temperature rises to avert a climate catastrophe (i.e. 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels), we need an annual reduction in CO2 emissions of 6% for the foreseeable future (until 2050?).
How are we going to achieve these reductions? It seems we need to put the world economy on hold for about 4-5 months every year !!!
So to avoid blasting ourselves back to the stone age via catastrophic climate change, we have to blast ourselves back to the stone age via economic ruin.
We're screwed.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
The Decision to Free Cardinal Pell Was The Correct One
Cardinal George Pell's conviction for child sexual abuse has been overturned by the High Court of Australia.
Let me start by saying that I don't think any punishment is too strong for child sexual abuse. In my mind it is as bad as murder - if not worse.
So why did the High Court overturn his conviction? To put it simply - reasonable doubt.
Reasonable doubt is the accepted measure of justice in the Western legal system. To convict a person, their guilt must be proved beyond reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers.
Pell was convicted by a jury of his peers, and his conviction was upheld on appeal.
During the trial, evidence was presented about Pell performing the abuse in certain areas of the building. The evidence also said Pell committed the abuse while donning Bishop's garb.
The High Court effectively said that reasonable doubt should have arisen about these allegations. Firstly, the area of the building where the abuse allegedly occurred would have been frequented by others at the time of the abuse. And secondly, the robes Pell was wearing at the time would have made the physical act of abuse very difficult to carry out.
The evidence about the location and clothing does not appear to be in dispute - yet the jury seemingly ignored its ramifications, apparently basing its conviction almost solely on its perception of the credibility of the accuser.
The High Court in effect agreed with Justice Weinberg, who allowed Pell's first appeal on the grounds of reasonable doubt that the offences could have taken place, but was out-voted by the other two justices.
The jury was mistaken in convicting Pell when they ignored evidence that shed reasonable doubt about the offences being committed by Pell in that specific location at that particular time, and while wearing the clothes he was wearing.
Our legal system does not deal with absolute concepts - it works on probabilities. 'Reasonable doubt' effectively says that the probability of the offence being committed under the given circumstances is less than 50%.
That is why the the High Court set George Pell free.
Let me start by saying that I don't think any punishment is too strong for child sexual abuse. In my mind it is as bad as murder - if not worse.
So why did the High Court overturn his conviction? To put it simply - reasonable doubt.
Reasonable doubt is the accepted measure of justice in the Western legal system. To convict a person, their guilt must be proved beyond reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers.
Pell was convicted by a jury of his peers, and his conviction was upheld on appeal.
During the trial, evidence was presented about Pell performing the abuse in certain areas of the building. The evidence also said Pell committed the abuse while donning Bishop's garb.
The High Court effectively said that reasonable doubt should have arisen about these allegations. Firstly, the area of the building where the abuse allegedly occurred would have been frequented by others at the time of the abuse. And secondly, the robes Pell was wearing at the time would have made the physical act of abuse very difficult to carry out.
The evidence about the location and clothing does not appear to be in dispute - yet the jury seemingly ignored its ramifications, apparently basing its conviction almost solely on its perception of the credibility of the accuser.
The High Court in effect agreed with Justice Weinberg, who allowed Pell's first appeal on the grounds of reasonable doubt that the offences could have taken place, but was out-voted by the other two justices.
The jury was mistaken in convicting Pell when they ignored evidence that shed reasonable doubt about the offences being committed by Pell in that specific location at that particular time, and while wearing the clothes he was wearing.
Our legal system does not deal with absolute concepts - it works on probabilities. 'Reasonable doubt' effectively says that the probability of the offence being committed under the given circumstances is less than 50%.
That is why the the High Court set George Pell free.
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