Federal Government Wants to Track Your Phone/Movements to Fight Wuhan Virus Spread

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The toll of the Wuhan virus will be measured in more than lives lost, or economic shortfalls; beneath the surface Americans may well be further ceding power to the government that they’ll never get back.

And so it begins…

From the Washington Post:

“The U.S. government is in active talks with Facebook, Google and a wide array of tech companies and health experts about how they can use location data gleaned from Americans’ phones to combat novel coronavirus, including tracking whether people are keeping one another at safe distances to stem the outbreak.

Public-health experts are interested in the possibility that private-sector companies could compile the data in anonymous, aggregated form, which they could then use to map the spread of the infection, according to three people familiar with the effort, who requested anonymity because the project is in its early stages.

Analyzing trends in smartphone owners’ whereabouts could prove to be a powerful tool for health authorities looking to track coronavirus, which has infected more than 180,000 people globally. But it’s also an approach that could leave some Americans uncomfortable, depending on how it’s implemented, given the sensitivity when it comes to details of their daily whereabouts. […]”

Is it worth it? Continue read here.

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