Recently, TechCrunch released an article detailing the usage of a mandatory, location-tracking application for students of Albion College in Michigan. Aura is an app developed with the aim to automatically alert school officials when a student was resulted in positive for COVID-19 and alerts other students if they had come into close contact with said individual. However, for this functionality to work, it tracks student's locations around the clock.
This, in itself, would cause concern unfortunately. Furthermore, there were also at least 2 security risks within the app. As a result, some students on campus felt reluctant to return, as this privacy-invading application was mandatory for all students. In fact, when Korea’s way of counteracting against the pandemic via GPS tracking was known to the world, majority of the countries showed concerns about the very problem: privacy invasion.
However in time of crisis like now, people need to let down something for the sake of humanity and thus I’d be compliant to this. For one, thanks to the tracking system and the citizens cooperation with KDCP(Korea Disease Control and Prevention), Korea managed to mitigate the pandemic and keep the country under control.
Privacy Concern
While I do say that, I do understand the risks of using Aura. For one, the app is intrusive, ... only intrusive. Full time GPS tracking in the past was only required for house arrest. I'm sure there is someone around us who would be absolutely intolerant about this.
Frankly, this wouldn't be too much of a serious problem if the programming of the app is flexible and manageable. However, the real issue that I see from reading the article is that the management of Aura aren't as responsive as others would desire.
Diagrams
We have updated COVID Risk diagrams! We even have a physical diagram now.
Conceptual
Physical
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