Brickbat: Do You Know Where You're Going To?

Canada's Public Health Agency said it tracked 33 million cellphones to determine where people were going during COVID-19 lockdowns. While the agency said it collected the data "due to the urgency of the pandemic," it has also announced it plans to continue collecting cell phone data for up to five years. It insists that it will require the contractor handling the program to scrub any information that could identify individuals.

Comments

[Jerryskids]

As long as they pinky-swear they're not going to use their enhanced surveillance powers for any other policing purposes, I don't see what could possibly go wrong with location-tracking of every single person in the country.

[Jerryskids]

Oh, they didn't pinky-swear they wouldn't use this surveillance data for other purposes? Well, I'm sure it was implied.

[kcuch]

Not guilty. No-one ever told them that breaking a pinky-swear to use this specific surveillance tool was wrong.

[Mike Liarson]

Just like the FBI monitoring parents at school board meetings doesn’t matter unless and until they actually arrest one of them on terrorism charges, this doesn’t matter until they use this surveillance to arrest people.

[m4019597]

The story is inaccurate. Ottawa bought the data from a mobile carrier to determine movement patterns at a population level, to evaluate effectiveness of public health crap.

They didn’t do any tracking. That would involve determining individual movements.

[CE]

yeah, totally innocuous.
but now that they've got the data....

[Fist of Etiquette]

The reason the directive was disclosed was, according to Johnson, to “to be open and transparent.”

And I'm sure not because the scheme was about to be leaked.

Five years is a lot of urgency.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Never waste a permanent crisis.

[Will Nonya]

They'll scrub identifying data except for little things like location data, movement patterns, interaction patterns ..nothing that could be used to identify where you live, work or who you socialize with...

[TangoDelta]

No doubt Canada isn't the only one and no doubt it isn't just the public health agency.

[m4019597]

Any asshole with a private investigator license, including bail bondsmen and skip tracers, can buy access to carrier data. It’s a product carriers sell and they’re not secretive about it.

The fact that governments also buy the data really shouldn’t be surprising. It doesn’t require a warrant or subpoena, as long as it’s not used in a trial. It’s cheap. It can be customized. Of course governments buy it!

[jimc5499]

If you know someone who works with electronics, have them get you an anti-static bag. Put your phone in it and only take it out to use it.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Anti-static bags are not what you want. Amazon sells what you really want.

[Ben of Houston]

The only real solution is removing the phone's battery or encasing it in something that completely kills the reception. Of course, this makes it useless as a phone.

[GroundTruth]

But not as an emergency phone. Yes, it's a pain to put the battery back in after you've just hit a tree, or while your building is burning, but life's about tradeoffs.

[m4019597]

Won’t work. iPhones and android phones continue to store location, WiFi, motion, air pressure, temperature, elevation, GPS and other data until you finally reconnect with the internet, then send it in a burst back to Apple or Google.

That’s why it takes slightly longer to get back to the internet on a device that’s been in airplane mode for several days, compared to one that’s been in airplane mode for just an hour. The slight extra delay is for the extra location data being sent home.

[Dillinger]

blame. Canada.

[GroundTruth]

It insists that it will require the contractor handling the program to scrub any information

Right. Just like my employer will be deleting all medical data obtained during the covid emergency once the "emergency" is over. And if you believe that data will ever be scrubbed, I've got some beautiful property for you a couple miles east of Miami.

[Sevo]

"...It insists that it will require the contractor handling the program to scrub any information that could identify individuals..."

Ya better move fast on the bridge anchorage; it's gonna go quick at this price!