{"id":71183,"date":"2021-03-16T15:36:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=71183"},"modified":"2021-03-16T15:36:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:36:48","slug":"theres-not-always-an-app-for-that-pandemic-shows-limits-of-tech-solutions-says-brock-prof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2021\/03\/theres-not-always-an-app-for-that-pandemic-shows-limits-of-tech-solutions-says-brock-prof\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s not always an app for that: Pandemic shows limits of tech solutions, says Brock prof"},"content":{"rendered":"

One year into the pandemic, COVID-19 is showing that tech can\u2019t solve difficult societal problems, says Aaron Mauro, Assistant Professor with Brock\u2019s Centre for Digital Humanities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a good moment to critically reflect on the promises made by Silicon Valley,\u201d he says. \u201cIt would be wonderful if the standardization of these surveillance technologies led to a moment where we collectively realize there is not always an \u2018app for that\u2019 and protect our privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smartphone apps were quickly embraced around the world to track COVID-19 infections and stop its spread, and there has been growing interest in wearable tech. Using wearable tech to track contact in the workplace has been making headlines, with the Greater Toronto Airport Authority piloting<\/a> devices at Pearson International Airport and the Ontario government recently announcing a $2.5-million investment<\/a> in wearable tech development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear that the app hasn\u2019t lived up to the optimism that was being projected from Alphabet and Apple,\u201d says Mauro, noting that usage data on Canada\u2019s national COVID-19 app is pretty spotty and inconsistent, and it\u2019s not being used in all jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

Mauro points to a report in the Lancet<\/a>, which found that while technology-based solutions like smartphone apps and wearable trackers could aid manual COVID-19 contact tracing, they are unlikely to control the spread of COVID-19 without additional measures. Using tech to track disease spread requires a very high percentage of the population to use the app and adhere to quarantine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue is that we live in a liberal democracy that is willing to sacrifice a lot to maintain personal freedom,\u201d says Mauro. \u201cSo, because of our hesitancy to constrain civil liberties, Canada was unwilling to mandate the use of the app. We made certain decisions about balancing civil liberties during a period of crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

While scientists and politicians are hesitant to criticize tech that can potentially help during an acute crisis, Mauro sees the reliance on these tech solutions as a slow-moving crisis that further erodes privacy through the normalization of corporate surveillance.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 tracking app usage is affected by factors such as smartphone ownership and privacy concerns. But while individuals may choose not to install an app out of concern for privacy, Apple and Google have implemented tracking standards in their smartphone operating systems anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle and Apple effectively own the smartphone market in the world and they now have a shared standard that allows for the tracking of individuals at close proximities,\u201d says Mauro. \u201cIt is now part of the operating systems. The technology has rolled out, regardless of whether you wanted it on your phone or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is common for corporations to use times of emergency to push through legislative changes or cultural and societal shifts in the use of their products.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen this kind of disaster capitalism now happen around COVID-19 where the injection of, essentially, spyware has been rolled out without a great deal of oversight by our national governments, and that\u2019s very concerning,\u201d says Mauro, adding he hopes governments will review such decisions post-pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are really inviting a kind of techno dystopia of total information awareness from large global corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One year into the pandemic, COVID-19 is showing that tech can\u2019t solve difficult societal problems, says Aaron Mauro, Assistant Professor with Brock\u2019s Centre for Digital Humanities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":71184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,37,1,4],"tags":[8542,263,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71185,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71183\/revisions\/71185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}