Can App, smart health wristbands and data collection against the Covid-19?

Governments around the world are taking steps to monitor the circulation of Covid-19 on their territory and limit contamination of populations. The use of technology quickly established itself, from geolocation to mobile applications and connected wristbands. Can smart monitor against coronavirus?Are these solutions effective? What about the individual freedoms of each?

Crisis management and Covid-19: is technology a dangerous solution?

South Korea is one of the few countries to have adopted a strategy of partial containment through mass screening for the disease on its territory. Thus, only sick people are quarantined;To ensure compliance with quarantine, patients are monitored via a mobile application. But following the name respect for measures by some, the South Korean government decided to use a connected bracelet, which is paired with the application;France, Italy, the United States, Germany… many countries are considering the use of a mobile application similar to that available in South Korea;In order to help monitor the circulation of the virus, some wish to exploit the advantages of connected wristbands.

South Korea: Covid-19 patients under surveillance

While many states are preparing for the deconfinement of their populations, they are interested in the advantages that technological innovation could bring in this context. In France, discussions are lively, in particular concerning the question of the exploitation of data during the Covid-19 crisis and the individual freedoms of citizens. Thus, the project to develop an application, called “StopCovid”, carried by the government is far from unanimous. This application would allow digital tracing, and would work on a voluntary basis and thanks to Bluetooth.

In order to find strategies facilitating a return to normal under the best conditions, the countries still in quarantine turn to those adopted in other states where the containment is not total, or those where people are again authorized get out.

South Korea, which has deployed massive screening on its territory, falls into the first category, that is to say that only the sick are placed in quarantine, but not the rest of the population.

In South Korea, surveillance of patients with Covid-19 is mandatory. Several methods are used, from geolocation of smartphones to calls to the homes of confined people. In addition, an application very similar to StopCovid made it possible to monitor compliance with confinement by people placed in quarantine. However, some have defied the ban. So, in order to check if the patients respect the various quarantine measures, the government decided in mid-April 2020 to force these reluctant people to wear an electronic tracking bracelet. The bracelet works with the South Korean Bluetooth application, and here the concepts of choice and consent obviously have no place. If the wearer of the bracelet decides to destroy it, the South Korean authorities will be immediately notified: “After a thorough examination, the government has decided to put electronic bracelets on people who violate the rules of self-isolation, leaving without prevent or not answer phone calls, “said Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, relayed by the Yonhap news agency.

Connected watches and bracelets: from population surveillance to the study of Covid-19

Will connected apps and bracelets be useful for deconfinement?

To varying degrees, all of the countries affected by the Covid-19 pandemic are taking steps to achieve the individual freedoms of their citizens. These drastic solutions ask: how far can a government go on the pretext of wanting to protect its population? The use of the mobile application is envisaged by France, but also Italy for example.

However, now, it is on the Internet of Things – or IoT – side that some people turn to. Several countries wish to exploit the advantages of connected equipment, but not necessarily to monitor the sick. Thus, in Germany, the health authorities also offer the population to download a mobile application called “Corona-Datenspende”. The use of this application is voluntary, and specifically intended for people with a bracelet or a connected watch. These objects make it possible to analyze the body temperature of individuals and their sleep cycles. Thanks to the data collected via the application, the government could therefore keep an eye on potential characteristics of Covid-19, as well as on the spread of the disease and its evolution over time. Here, the approach is not so much the surveillance of the German population as the study of the disease.

Of course, the wristbands could also help identify patients to find out whether or not they have been in contact with an infected person in order to monitor the circulation of the virus. In France, the Sigfox company is working on a connected bracelet operating independently of the smartphone: “The idea is to have a bracelet, or another connected object, which is not connected to the smartphone and would make it possible to know people crossed by its carrier during the day and those who went to different places “, explained to RTL.fr Ludovic Le Moan, CEO of Sigfox. The challenge would be to find alternatives to the solutions offered by the web giants, “who already know everything about our privacy,” he said. The goal is not to track down a person to find out if they went to the Post Office or the supermarket, but to help the authorities manage the circulation of the virus. ”

Whether it is the use of geolocation data, mobile applications in Bluetooth or connected wristbands, many wonder about the potential consequences that these devices could have in the long term. Whether the ambitions of governments and companies are laudable or not, such solutions – even if they are based on voluntary work – involve a real risk for individual freedoms.

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