Cyber Scene #44 - Tracing Tracks: So Near Yet So Far Away

Cyber Scene #44 -

Tracing Tracks: So Near Yet So Far Away

Tracing the tracks of the pandemic before us is a monumental challenge across the globe, calling upon the world's most illustrious cyber and epidemiologic experts to once again work through the tangle of the privacy versus security dilemma to resolve an agonizing and on-going life or death struggle. This Cyber Scene will look at how this is playing out in both the private and public sectors particularly with regard to the development of contact tracing across several non-US countries.

As a backdrop, democratic and authoritarian nation states vary fundamentally in how they address tracking for any purpose. Whereas historically the US has exercised decision-making in a representational democratic manner, China or Russia, on the other hand, assert control through centralization, fueled by millenniums of history--Tatars, dynasties and czars for example. Such governments determine and implement policies from the top down, supporting security over privacy. The "West" does not. Some nation states attempt either a democratic or an authoritarian approach unsuccessfully and become failed states with ungoverned space. A map of UN peacekeeping missions across three continents provides a sense of where neither bookend of governance exists, or exists in only a nascent or nominal stage. The histories of independent nations are very young, but contact tracing may bloom in Third World's future as a cell phone is the single most ubiquitous item that interconnects the world, regardless of whether "globalization" blossoms in the future or dies. But that is for the future; here we will focus on the current contact tracing mechanisms for dealing with pandemic issues.

While governance differences apply to dealing with pandemic contagion levels, implementation of restrictions, and current knowledge of a (or at least an approximate) sense of population demographics, this Cyber Scene is exploring how contact tracing is playing out particularly in China, Russia and Europe.

Authoritarian states -such as Russia and China do not - abide public disgruntlement over the use of cyber for contact tracing, or at least not for long: authoritarianism by definition sets the course, traditionally in 5 year plans in Russia, and up to multi-decade plans in China where the most recent is the year "2050." What might in other countries be a developed private sector tech world, China pulls an otherwise private sector under the government’s umbrella where it may be highly nurtured, as is seen more openly in China. The most accomplished cyber experts and epidemiologists work for or closely with the government. They align with the strategic plan which is not subject to democratic underfunding, disregard, revision, or replacement with every election, as may occur in the US and other Western countries.

In China, this strategic approach to working backward from 2050 to establish interim goals per sector is beyond impressive. For those lacking the patience to read the entire 2050 plan, Google provides a handy graphic analysis of where the Chinese tech sector is heading for readers to grasp at a glance. While the plan may be altered, the approach to technology--and health and census and demographics, to say nothing of economic global impact and military prowess--is unified, funded, and supported politically. The country's "private sector," with full central government support, seeks to extract as much information as possible from global developments to accelerate its own country's progress.

With regard to the pandemic, of course, the Chinese had a plan. As early as at least 2006 there was not only a pandemic plan for China, but for its Asian neighbors as well. Early on, the Chinese not only identified the COVID-19 code, but shared it world-wide as their epidemiologists foresaw the pandemic's spread and impact. They knew where their populace was, given good census data and a general tight hold on demographics. As early as early February 2020, China launched its contact tracing app linked to an on-line bill pay app or WeChat used by the populace, to trace the spread of the virus by cell phone users. Given the travels of the Chinese, to include overseas study, the contact tracing app was a very significant tool. Their census data is strong. Their growth rate had been shrinking in part due to their one-child policy; Chinese officials recognized this and lifted the constraints to align with the country's needs. They mitigated the "unknowns" in their data. As of 14 May, according to the New York Times Sui-Lee Wee and Vivian Wang, China is executing its program to test 11 million residents of Wuhan, despite the drop in COVID-19 prevalence. And they know where to find them.

Wired's Mara Hvistendahl examines, in "How a Chinese AI Giant Made Chatting--and Surveillance--Easy," tracking evolution in China's cyber technology, noting that its Big Tech voice technology company, iFlytek, has been supporting the country's surveillance of its populace by identifying the sound of cell phone speakers by voice recognition. Wired references the Human Rights Watch August 2017 report with the organization, in turn posting an article by Washington Post Senior China Researcher Maya Wang. Wang maintains that this is "a technology perhaps useful in contact tracing but objectionable" and is "an essential part of the party's plan to build a digital totalitarian state."

In Russia, the Moscow Times reported on 22 May that the COVID-19 prevalence data indicates a likely spike, over and above the country's move to #2 globally, behind the US. The article also alludes to changes in the medical reporting mechanism. There has been no disclosure of a top-down pandemic plan that the country as a whole would sign up to, to include contact tracing, and certainly no public discussion of privacy issues. There is, however, a history of robust surveillance. Chief of State Vladimir Putin had been characterized as withdrawn from early and mid-timeframe concerns about the pandemic, and involved in his re-election issues. He famously delivered pandemic supplies to the US, but as noted by Nathan Hodge in CNN's 15 April broadcast, Russia was reciprocally the beneficiary of US ventilators.

The Russian authoritarian approach illustrates a serious contrast to China's approach: with Russia, decision-making relies on only one leader, whereas China's leadership is executing a longstanding, all-inclusive strategic pandemic plan under the umbrella of its 2050 plan. Science's Kelly Servick's 21 May overview of contact tracing developments around the world notably makes no mention of Russia. However, Australia is described (as would likely be New Zealand) as a democratic country which nonetheless has instituted contact-tracing practices and apparently sidestepped much of the privacy issues that impact other countries.

Western democratic countries do not usually execute either of these authoritarian cyber-related plans. That may sometimes be problematic. The Economist's 16 May "Escaping the lockdown" probes into the pandemic's forcing quick decisions with incomplete data and a move to warp speed research and development to resolve the pandemic's multi-faceted challenges. The article goes on to say that contact tracing apps on smartphones fall into the same category; those countries involved "from Bahrain to Bulgaria to Indonesia and Iceland have developed such apps” but that these governments should "tread carefully." It cautions that unlike pandemic-related medical advances that are still subject to safeguards, contact tracing may lead to misleading information. This includes the complications of coverage, accuracy and calibration of the system. It does note that Google's and Apple's cautiousness is well taken (more to follow here on that) and that "caution is as valuable as it is with pills and potions."

Indeed, in the Herald Tribune, Associated Press's Matt O'Brien on 20 May writes that Apple and Google released technology that would allow smartphone users to be notified if they might have been exposed to COVID-19. This would be accomplished through a voluntary (versus mandated) user app download. Reportedly, companies in 22 countries and several US states are opting to use this technology. Mr. O'Brien notes that many governments (public sector) have not been as successful as their private sector colleagues. However, Apple and Android phones have not been used;their GPS tracking is now banned from the new Apple and Google tool because of privacy and accuracy issues.

It has been the issue of privacy in the COVID context that generated a clash between Apple and Google on the one hand, and certain European governments on the other, according to earlier reporting by the Britain-based Economist editorialist "Charlemagne" in "Privacy in a Pandemic" who stated on 23 April that “If the EU had a religion, it would be privacy." He outlines how the EU has been quick to punish tech sins against "the faith." He cites some German and Austrian leaders as casting the dilemma as "data protection or saved lives." Continuing his profession of faith, Charlemagne sums up this sea change as follows: "It is as if the pope began a sermon by admitting that perhaps Martin Luther had a point." He underscores that the final deliberations will be won or lost not on legalities (existing EU laws, etc.) but by the weight of political considerations.

Almost unbelievably, the converse seems to have come true. By 30 April in "Privacy be damned” the Economist reports that as an outgrowth of Apple and Google working with European governments on a new Bluetooth protocol regarding the location of the data gained from the phone for uses such as contact tracing, the governments wanted to centralize the data, and Apple and Google wanted to keep it decentralized on the users' phones. The governments--Germany, Switzerland, Estonia, and Austria, inter alia--caved and accepted the decentralized approach. France and Britain were holdouts as of early May. The article applauds Apple and Google, and observes that "the pandemic has highlighted the core role that digital systems play in human life.”

A possible compromise of these two approaches regarding the need for COVID-19 data AND privacy may be in the making. On 14 May, the Economist's "Health data" presented a new way to use accessible yet protected medical data. A team of data scientists and epidemiologists called the OpenSAFELY Collective led by Dr. Ben Goldacre at the University of Oxford--a university in the news of late for a possible COVID-19 vaccination in the making--created a way to access sensitive patient records for 17 million people from their database without removing the data from its location. This work was occasioned by the need to analyze data of COVID-attributable deaths reported by doctors to the UK's National Health Service (NHS) Normally, accessing such data and publishing about it would have either never occurred or would have taken forever. This time, however, it took only 42 days from concept to publication. This was due in part to the fact that the team was working on behalf of the NHS, that Dr. Goldacre is known as "one of Britain's foremost medical glitterati," that the collaboration of the esteemed London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine added academic expertise on electrical health records, and that a private British company, Phoenix Partnership, added data storage expertise.

Meanwhile, the Isle of Wight is serving as a beta tester for the UK's newly developed contact tracing app. This endeavor, launched in early May, is backed by the NHS, endorsed from a security perspective by GCHQ, and moving forward. The London Times casts this effort in a highly optimistic manner, but does not make a direct connection to the OpenSAFELY Collective work. Perhaps applying the OpenSAFELY Collective approach to contact tracing would satisfy both sides of the privacy "religious" schism in Europe and aid the rollout of Apple/Google's app in the US as well.