This innovative technology, although controversial, will give early warning notification that your mobile has detected being in contact with a Corona virus victim.
In a nutshell - the way it works is:
signup and install the free smartphone App’
Mobile NFC, the Bluetooth Near Field Communication App’, built in to all smartphones operating systems, will continually page, (send Bluetooth signals to other nearby smartphones).
all successful Bluetooth connections will be logged to a database for about three weeks
smartphone users who discovers they have become infected may notify their user App’
the online server receives the bad news and sends warnings to all who have been in contact during the past specified period.
message notification recipients can then plan their best course of action
I work in the heart of a major metropolis (inside the top 50 US cities by population), so I know my phone has been within range of a victim, or a victim’s relative, or a person who has been in contact with a victim. The math simply says ‘yes’.
I have no need for yet another panic-inducement vector. See previous point, I do not see it as an ‘if’ but a ‘when’. And i’m okay with that.
Apart from my usual concerns about invasion of privacy, I also think these things tend to give a false sense of security.
For a start, it doesn’t take account of people like coothead and myself who don’t carry smartphones. No warning doesn’t mean no contact.
By the time they have been confirmed as a coronavirus victim, I suspect many/most people will have other concerns than remembering to update their app.
I do like the innovative idea of utilising available resources and should imagine the software could be written quite quickly.
As far as signing up, I have very mixed feelings and would most likely sign up just to see what the interface was like and also the notifications which I am sure there will be many…
Similar to @m_hutley I live about half a kilometer from the Chinese Embassy in a densely populated area which caters mostly for Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and other SE-Asian nationalities.
I agree with @TechnoBear about “invasion of privacy” since it is proposed to insert the software into the operating system. I can’t ever imagine that once installed it will ever be removed. If the person that was recently diagnosed with the virus did not report because of having "other concerns’, no doubt the medical authorities would be very interested in accessing the records to find others who may be infected.
The software could easily be abused especially during lockdown when notifications about any trips outside of the home could be flagged and impose penalties.
Perhaps I am just being paranoid after reading a book about radicals in the year 2050. Prior to their secret meetings they all placed their mobiles in a microwave to prevent access from “Big Brother”. The corrupt authorities manipulated tests against insurgents and shipped them off to a penal colony. The book by Phil M Williams is “2050: Psycho Island”.
