But most people won’t know very well who they have seen. For example, I went shopping this morning and probably saw around 50 people. I would recognize less than 10 of them, if I were to meet them again. I know the names of none of them.
Since most governments can’t ask their entire population “were you in the neighborhood of this walking path”, there’s no simple way for them to find those people (t.v. broadcasts and canvassing in the neighborhood would work, but are labor-intensive and slow)
That’s where this will help. The people who came into close contact will get informed, and, hopefully, will self-isolate. The government doesn’t have to know who they are, where they were, etc.
It will require a significant part of the population to opt-in on this, though. That’s challenging. In Singapore, only 20% of people did. That’s why privacy is so important for this for many countries.
This is true in general but the stated issue is that this system would make it possible for governments to find out where an infected person has been. Manual contact tracing is the same thing, but manual. You can always opt to not tell them about something, you can always opt to leave your phone at home or turn it off.
Since most governments can’t ask their entire population “were you in the neighborhood of this walking path”, there’s no simple way for them to find those people (t.v. broadcasts and canvassing in the neighborhood would work, but are labor-intensive and slow)
That’s where this will help. The people who came into close contact will get informed, and, hopefully, will self-isolate. The government doesn’t have to know who they are, where they were, etc.
It will require a significant part of the population to opt-in on this, though. That’s challenging. In Singapore, only 20% of people did. That’s why privacy is so important for this for many countries.