This is Part 7 of this article. Read the last part here: Part 67.(3).5.3 Plan and decide if the government needs to have a new system early
There is another problem of Trade-Van (The development vendor) which is pointed out in one of the job reviews of this company on Quille: There are often unreasonably short schedules for projects in this company, which could also be one of the reasons that this system is terrible. However, with regard to this vaccination appointment platform, answering to the question of why the Taiwan government waited until June 2021 to do the purchase of the system, Minister Shi Chong Chen explained, “at first, from the end of last year (2020) to the beginning of this year (2021), we wanted to use the health insurance system to build a vaccine appointment platform, but we found it’s difficult to combine the two systems [1]https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2021-10-12/649729 .” Should this reason be acceptable?
The answer is still NO. According to what Minister Chen explained, the government already found that it was difficult to combine the two systems at the beginning of 2021. There are at least 4 months until the beginning of June, so why the government did the emergency purchase on June 2021, not in February? If the decision was made earlier in Feb, the development vendor would have had four more months to develop this system. I am not sure if the government indeed wait to ask the vendor to start doing this project until June, but judging from what the news said “the government did emergency purchase in June”, it’s very likely that it’s the case. More importantly, one thing that many people didn’t notice is that the timeframe of evaluating the possibility of combining the health insurance system started from the end of 2020, and the evaluation only took two months at most. The pandemic started at the beginning of 2020, and many vaccine trials in Western countries were already started in March or April of 2020. Why didn’t the Taiwan government plan to have a vaccine appointment platform and evaluate the possibility of combining the health insurance system earlier?
In fact, as described in the job interview of this company I cited, unreasonably short schedules often happen in Trade-Van (The development vendor). Since many of Trade-Van’s projects are from the Taiwan government, it’s possible that the unreasonably short timeline is because the Taiwan government raises requests very late. I suggest the Taiwan government, no matter which division you are in, plan and decide if you need to have a new system early on, not at the last minute – which is a common bad habit of many Taiwanese and Taiwan companies.
7.(3).5.4 Develop some neccessary systems which will be used by citizens and government personnels in advance in normal times (Not during a pandemic), or adopt a hybrid approach of both adopting a quick solution and developing a system.
In an earlier paragraph, I talked about the event that when the budget of 300 million for the Real-Time-Message-Contact system of Taiwan which was used for tracing footprints of infectors was almost finished, NCC requested the telecommunication companies “share the hardship”, which attracted a lot of criticism that it’s ineffective while costing a lot of money [2]https://tw.news.yahoo.com/news/簡訊實聯制3億預算快花完-ncc-盼電信業者共體時艱-014743489.html . The Taiwan government’s answer of why choosing a message system over an App was that the timeframe of development was too short, and there would be many issues needed to deal with when developing an App (The “issues” here mean problems “appearing on a specific platform” when using that platform. An alternative terminology is “bug” ). I also said that there was already an App that the Taiwan government can also use to track footprints at that time. Nevertheless, if there was no such App and the timeframe was too short, I do think the Taiwan government’s choice of the message system is right, as the government needed a quick solution on contact tracing for preventing more people from getting infected and receiving treatments late. That said, I do have a solution of which the Taiwan government can do in the future except choosing the costly message system. My solution is to developsome necessary systems in advance in normal times (Not during a pandemic) that will be used by citizens and government personnel in special periods, including a contact tracing App like the Social Distancing App in Taiwan. If the government develops a necessary platform such as vaccine appointment or contact tracing in advance, there will be sufficient time for fixing those software issues which may occur.
A contact tracing App like the Social Distancing App in Taiwan will probably be needed when any outbreak of any infectious and deathful disease occurs. Developing such an App in advance can prevent many headaches when an outbreak occurs and the government needs a contact tracing solution immediately. Although it will take quite amount of money in making such a solution, and many Taiwanese will think that why spending this amount of money when there is no pandemic, developing such systems in advance still worth it: As I said, if the contact tracing job isn’t done well because there have not been a contact tracing solution for a period of time, there will probably be more people getting infected and receiving treatments late. In fact, I do think the Taiwan government should develop such a contact tracing App as the Social Distancing App much more earlier than the time the development was started. Many western governments’ contact tracing Apps was already launched on 2020. Germany’s contact tracing App was launched on June, 2020 [3]https://www.thelocal.de/20200612/how-will-germanys-coronavirus-tracing-app-work/ . Australia’s contact tracing App was launched on April, 2020 [4]https://spectrum.ieee.org/australias-contact-tracing-covidsafe-app. A possible reason that the Taiwan government didn’t develop such an App in 2020 is that there was no case in Taiwan in 2020 as the government did well in controlling COVID-19 at that time; therefore, the Taiwan government didn’t want to spend much money on it: Part of the reason is that they indeed agreed that it would be a waste; another part of the reason is that Taiwanese would also think it would be a waste. Nonetheless, as I said, developing such a system in advance when there is no outbreak still worth it because of the reason I explained.
Developing a system in advance will require a certain amount of money in maintainence, so let’s talk about how much does it cost to develop such an App. In earlier paragraph, I use the average price of taking up a software project from my past experience and the average salary of a software engineer in the U.S as the example of how much a system may cost. These are for the development of a system; I didn’t discuss too much about another cost: Hosting (Or you can just refer to it as cloud cost as many platform use cloud services for hosting nowadays), which is a periodic cost for operating a system, including server costs. So how much does it cost to run such an App nationwide? In a previous paragraph, I take an example from Quora to estimate that it probably take $1,283,400 (TWD) per year to handle a traffic of 23 million users, which accounts for only 0.6% of the 200 million budget of a vaccine-appointment platform. Now, let me use Australia’s case as another example. According to the data disclosed by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) in Australia, the monthly cost of keeping Australia’s contact tracing App running including dealing with the nationwide traffic is about AU$100,000, which is TWD$ 2,100,000 [5]https://www.zdnet.com/article/australias-covidsafe-costs-au100000-per-month-to-keep-running/ . In total is TWD$ 25,200,000 per year, which only accounts for 8.4% of the 300 million budget for the message-contact system which is the solution in Taiwan for the same purpose: Contact tracing. A contact tracing app like Australia’s doesn’t need to cost money for phone messages ( As the number of population of Australia is close to that of Taiwan, the Australian case is worth considering ). In addition, even if comparing Australia’s contact tracing App with Taiwan’s vaccine appointment platform, Australia’s App still only accounts for 12.6% of the 200 million budget for the vaccine appointment platform in Taiwan.
In detail, the total cost of Australia’s App for both developing and running for 9 months is AU$6,745,322.31, which is TWD$ 141,651,762 – about TWD$142 million for 9 months or $190 million for one year, that is two-thirds of the 300 million budget for the message system for the same purpose: Contact tracing, not to mention the original budget of the message system is 800 million.
Since I am talking about developing such an App in advance when there is no pandemic, the traffic during the normal time will not be as high as the traffic in a pandemic; therefore, the monthly cost of running this App during the normal time won’t take AU$100,000 (TWD$ 2,100,000). The development cost of Australia’s App is about TWD 123 million (AU$5,844,182.51), which is far lower than the 300 million budget or the original 800 million budget.
There is another cost: Updating the software. For example, if there is an update on iOS or Android OS; App may need to update to meet the latest standard of iOS or Android. Since we are talking about developing a system in advance during the normal time, it will perhaps take years to meet another pandemic and finally put such an App into use. Before that happens, iOS or Android probably has some big updates and requires App developers to do updates on their Apps, as well. Thus, it will take a certain amount of money to ask development and design vendors to do an update. However, not every time iOS or Android is updated, an App needs to be updated, too. Will the additional cost of updating the software makes the total cost of making an App in advance surpass the 300 million (Or 800 million) budget for a phone message system? I don’t know, as both when the next pandemic will come and how frequently an App requires an update to meet the latest guideline of iOS or Android are unpredictable. But I still personally recommend developing such an necessary system in advance.
Another alternative solution I also recommend is using a phone message system first, developing an App that doesn’t require sending phone messages in the meantime, then switching to that App later and stopping using the phone message system after the App is completed – perhaps after two or three months using a phone message system. With this solution, we can have a quick solution of a phone message system for contact tracing in a limited timeframe, but don’t have to develop an App and regularly update it in advance. As an App will be introduced and replace the phone message system once the vendor completes fixing major bugs in two or three months, the cost of the phone message system can be lower ( There was a risk of running out the $300 million budget of the phone message system after 5 months the system started to be used. If the App takes five months to complete, the cost of the phone message system for 5 months will perhaps still take up to TWD$300 million, so it has to be completed in a shorter timeframe ). Nevertheless, whether a selected development vendor can quickly develop a contact tracing App without major bugs in two or three months is a question and I don’t know the answer. The answer to this question will need an estimation based on a known scope from a selected vendor; since the scope is known, it only leaves an estimation from the development vendor: If the scope of the required system is big, probably no one can develop that system in two or three months. However, if the scope of the system is not big and some developer teams evaluate that they can complete in a short timeframe, the abilities of these teams are perhaps better than the abilities of other teams which can not do so. In addition, it’s possible that there will be some unknowns except for fixing major bugs in a short timeframe. Since I don’t know what the estimation is, I can’t suggest which solution I propose is better. The Taiwan government must take the above factors into account and get estimations from development vendors if it agree to make a choice between develping an App in advance and the alternative solution: using a phone message system first, developing an App that doesn’t require sending phone messages in the meantime, and switching to that App later.
My above suggestions are made by specifically targeting Taiwan’s circumstance, but since the U.S government has similar problems of making software, except for the problem of lack of budgets in local governments, the U.S or any government which has similar problems may also take my suggestion into consideration. In addition, with respect to the problem of lack of budgets in local governments in the U.S, I suggest the U.S government consider making coming out with a solution for a specific purpose which is needed to be executed nationwide (e.x: vaccine appointment) as a federal government’s task, rather than local governments’ tasks, since that specific purpose is needed to be achieved nationwide anyway. Local governments’ roles can be in providing suggestions of a solution and necessary information, and working with the federal government, except for executing a solution in local states. In this way, there will be more budget for rolling out good quality software for all Americans in all states.
7.(3).5.5 Don’t let a development vendor provide a quotation with an estimated hosting fee. Make hosting fee be reimbursed on an actual expense.
The fourth action, which is optional, is making the hosting fee of a system be reimbursed on an actual expense. I discussed in 7.(3).5.1 that parts of the TWD$200 million budget for the vaccine appointment system went into the boss’s pocket instead of hiring a good interface designer to design the interface of the system, a service that should be included in the $200 million price. The cost of the hosting fee is actually in a similar situation. Remember I said that the answer of the developers as to why the vaccine appointment system crashed is that their estimation is wrong so they didn’t buy enough servers or the front-end gateways are overloaded? That’s because they want to save money and only spend money where it will be definitely spent. The Taiwan population data is there, they could have an overpessimistic estimation which is about higher estimated traffic than it should be even if they can’t make an accurate estimation of traffic based on the number of Taiwan population, but they didn’t. It’s actually common for start-up software companies in western countries to spend only few money on hosting and only increase their budget when their platform went crashes, but that’s because they just started so can’t have accurate information on how much traffic their platforms may receive. Thus, since they are small companies, instead of spending money on unpredictable traffic, they decide to save that money and only increase when the traffics increase. In the vaccine appointment platform of Taiwan’s case, the Taiwan population data is there, and the criteria of registration in every round are there; I don’t see why the development vendor can’t “at least” have an overpessimistic estimation ( estimate higher traffic than it should be ), as we spent $200 million on this system.
The problem is that the development vendor (Trade-Van) wanted to save as much money as possible so did an over-optimistic estimation of traffic, while we spent TWD$ 200 million on this system, but got a lot of crashes as the result. So we spend a lot of money but got a lot of crashes because the vendor wanted to save as much money as possible, while most of the money went into the boss’s pocket. How to solve this? Make the hosting fee reimbursed on an actual expense instead of letting a vendor provide a quotation that includes the hosting fee. The budget of this system is $200 million; this budget should be enough for paying a higher hosting fee to prevent crashes, hiring good engineers, and leaving at least a little profit for the company and the boss, but it crashes. Such being the case, just make hosting fee reimbursed on an actual expense. If they want to save as much money as possible and the platform crashes, that’s fine. At least that the saved money is in the government’s treasury instead of a vendor’s pocket. When a crash based on this reimbursement model occurs, I suggest that the government can say “Although the system crashed, that’s because we want to prevent unnecessary waste of money on hosting. The hosting fee is based on the reimbursement of an actual expense, so the potential unnecessary money remains in our government treasury – though turns out the money is necessary to be spent”, and I suggest that the Taiwanese accept such a crash event if that’s the case and the government provides this explanation. That said, if the hosting fee is based on the model of reimbursing on an actual expense, I doubt the vendor will still try so hard to “save as much money as possible” when the requirement should be no or only a few crashes.
That said, this suggestion is optional. If the Taiwan government still wants to let a development vendor quote an estimated hosting fee, that’s fine. But the government should raise the requirement clearly about whether it accepts many crashes, few crashes, or 0 crashes (while also preparing that it’s possible that there are still a few crashes even though its requirement is 0 crashes.) In this case, I suggest the government also needs to hire some Dev Ops professionals to evaluate whether an estimated hosting fee from a vendor is reasonable or not.
8. Contact tracing
Bill Gates also talks about the problem of contact tracing in his book. He says, “I’m skeptical that these apps will ever be effective enough to be worth a big investment of money or time. For one thing, their usefulness is capped by the number of people who install them, because the apps only record an exposure if both parties who come into contact with each other are using them. I suspect that most of the people who use these apps are also the ones who would follow lockdown guidelines—and if you’re doing that, you should have so few contacts that you can probably remember them all.” He further points out, “Contact tracing works best in countries that excel at testing and processing data—among them, South Korea and Vietnam. But both of those countries did things that wouldn’t fly in the United States……..The South Korean government used data from credit cards, mobile phones, and surveillance cameras to trace the movements of infected people and identify other people they had come in contact with. It published this information online, though it had to restrict some of the data after regional governments gave out too many details about people’s movements……..Vietnam also used posts on Facebook and Instagram, along with mobile phone location data, to supplement extensive face-to-face interviews.”
Vox also has a similar concern and once reported, “Vietnam has block wardens, village wardens, household registration, and inquisitive locals that intrude on people’s lives. They have a society where people report people……The government can and does share details with the public about positive cases (including the age, gender, and neighborhood where the person lives, as well as a flight number for travelers), sometimes leaking additional information for use as cautionary tales.” Vox raised one case, “Perhaps the most infamous example: Vietnam’s case number 17, a socialite who traveled to Italy without disclosing it at the border and faced severe public shaming. Her Covid-19 experience was the subject of government press conferences, and social media users tracked her down.” Vox asked Thayer, a professor of New South Wales about his opinion, and he said, “This heavy-handedness would not be tolerated in many Western countries, where concerns about personal freedom and privacy have often trumped public health throughout the pandemic.”
Nonetheless, Kelley Lee, a Simon Fraser University global health professor, provided a different perspective which I agree with. She said, “Yet to reduce Vietnam’s Covid-19 success to its system of authoritarian governance is a mistake.” She pointed out that democracies, like South Korea, Taiwan, and New Zealand, have employed similar tactics as Vietnam. A Westerner who lives in Vietnam, Bales, explains, “Vietnam’s is a very scientific approach and has merit on its own no matter which regime chooses to apply these types of measures.” As for the concern of privacy, Vox reports, “Bales was among several Vietnam-based Westerners who told Vox they believe the privacy and personal liberty costs during the pandemic were worth the benefits of living a relatively free life [6]https://www.vox.com/22346085/covid-19-vietnam-response-travel-restrictions .” Bales thinks that in Vietnam, you don’t have to worry and be afraid like you do in the West.
I don’t agree with Bill Gates’s concerns about privacy in this issue; I agree with Professor Kelley Lee and this Westerner Bale’s perspectives, and I want to provide my explanations of the above concerns.
8.(1) South Korea
With respect to South Korea’s case, Professor Kelley Lee only said it’s a democratic country that also doing such surveillance measures – that’s not a good answer. That said, I support part of South Korea’s actions, though part of actions I haven’t decided whether to support or not. Here is the list of South Korea’s actions that Bill Gates pointed out that wouldn’t fly in the U.S. My explanation is the following:
8.(1).1 Data from credit cards: Support.
If a criminal is at large, police in some countries including democratic countries have the right to use data from the criminal’s credit card to track the criminal with a warrant based on probable cause, according to laws in those countries [7]https://www.csoonline.com/article/2227912/feds-tracking-americans–credit-cards-in-real-time-without-a-warrant.html . Certainly, an infector is not a criminal, but a pandemic is a type of “emergency” in which an infector may endanger many other people’s lives – we may see this as a “life-threatening emergency”. In my view, it’s worth discussing whether to extend the use of data from credit cards to an infector of a disease with both deathful and contagious characteristics based on “a life-threatening emergency”, and whether a pandemic with both deathful and contagious characteristics can be viewed as “a life-threatening emergency” if so. Different countries will have different conclusions on whether to extend the use of credit card data to “life-threatening emergency” or not, but I personally suggest and support extending such uses to “life-threatening emergency”. In terms of many westerners’ concern of infringement on privacy, first, as the above is described, this is a “life-threatening emergency”. Second, according to research, patients are only tracked after being interviewed by health investigators and informed that their phone and credit card usage will be monitored, and personal data is scheduled to be deleted at the close of the government’s official response to COVID-19 [8]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172645/ . One point is that the South Korean government did indicate that personal data will be deleted after the close of COVID-19, so the worries of many people that the government may use to track their footprints after the pandemic should be cleared, unless the South Korean government still tracks those data after the pandemic anyway. Another point, which is more important, is that the South Korean government only tracks infectors’ footprints, not everyone’s. Since it only tracks infectors, as I said earlier, I personally suggest and support allowing such uses based on “life-threatening emergencies”.
8.(1).2 Mobile phones: Support.
Collections of data from mobile phones is both used in South Korea and Taiwan, but South Korea’s use is different from Taiwan’s: South Korea uses GPS data, which is not allowed for governments’ use in some Western countries. That said, as the South Korean government only tracks infectors (or potential cases), I suggest that the use of GPS data can follow my suggestion for the use of data from credit cards: Extend the use of GPS to “life-threatening emergencies”. Like the case of credit card data use for police, police in some countries including democratic countries have the right to use GPS data to track the criminal with a warrant based on probable cause [9]https://timraynelaw.com/can-the-police-access-cell-phone-gps-data-and-use-it-to-arrest-you/ . By the way, two points I want to mention. First, Taiwan’s way of mobile tracking is confirming the location of the people through the connection between the cell phone and the base station [10] https://www.cool3c.com/article/158993 , which many experts and legislators said it is possible that the use of this type of tracking violates the constitutional law of Taiwan, as I discussed earlier in (3).4.2 of Point 7 of this article [11]https://tw.stock.yahoo.com/news/社會-電子圍籬進階版-防疫專家指恐違憲-001456400.html . I also quoted the E.U’s law of permitting governments to obtain location information from telecom operators [12]https://www.ly.gov.tw/Pages/Detail.aspx?nodeid=6590&pid=212118 . From my perspective, my suggestion of allowing the use of GPS based on “life-threatening emergencies” can also be categorized as part of the reason behind the permission for such use by governments, as the E.U governments probably also need a warrant based on a probable cause to obtain location information of a specific people. Second, of course, allowing such a use extending to “life-threatening emergencies” that I suggest, either using GPS or getting location data from a telecom operator, also requires a similar warrant based on probable cause. The probable cause is what I called a “life-threatening emergency”. However, in a deathful pandemic, such a warrant should only be requested once for all possible future infectors and identified cases for efficiency, instead of applying for a warrant every time there is a case.
8.(1).3 Surveillance cameras: Undecided
Though I suggest governments extend the use of data collections from credit cards and mobile phones to contact tracing in a deathful and infectious pandemic, the use of surveillance cameras is a far more debatable topic. Part of the reason I support the use of credit cards and mobile phones is that the government can and only track individual infectors and identified potential cases rather than tracking everyone, but surveillance cameras may not work that way. More importantly, countries such as the U.S and the U.K are concerned about the use by police, Hence, it is a question that whether having CCTV cameras everywhere watching innocent civilians in order to catch criminals or track infectors is good or not, despite there are indeed CCTV cameras in many places in Pro-freedom countries such as the U.S and the U.K. I will write another article to discuss this topic. For now, my answer to such a use is Undecided.
In conclusion, I think some of the technologies used in South Korea should become acceptable, and the laws in many countries should be revised to make these technologies acceptable based on the above suggestions.
8.(2) Vietnam & South Korea
8.(2).1 Publish personal information of an infector online
This is an action which both Vietnam and South Korea have put into place. Let me discuss them separately.
Vietnam
The notorious case of publishing personal information of an infector by the Vietnam government is a Vietnam socialite whose sister got confirmation of getting COVID-19 in Vietnam, and both sisters were tracked down by the public and received much relentless condemnation. Let’s see what kind of information was disclosed by the Vietnam government. News from a media in Vietnam reported, “The female patient, 26-year-old N.H.N., is a hotel manager residing on Truc Bach Street in Ba Dinh District….N. traveled to the UK on February 15 and stayed at a sister’s house in London until February 18, when she set off to Milan, located in the Lombardy region of Italy, for sightseeing and shopping. On February 29, the woman began coughing but refused to see a doctor. The next day, she developed body aches. [13]https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20200306/vietnam-confirms-17th-covid19-patient-in-hanoi/53341.html ” Furthermore, the Vietnamese government invited the press to watch a live stream of a meeting about the young woman’s medical condition. The disclosed information and the live stream of the meeting made people on the Internet figure out who “N.” was and found her social media accounts, according to The New Yorker.
The infector Nhung made some mistakes, including she did not mention she went to Italy at the border. The New Yorker comments, “The Vietnamese government, clearly committed to making an example of Nhung, let it be known that when she flew home from London she did not mention her visit to Italy.” For the Vietnam socialite, she saw the attacks as examples of class jealousy [14]https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/the-public-shaming-pandemic .
Ok, here is my explanation.
First, there is nothing wrong with providing footprints of an infector to the public – doing so lets the public can be aware of the possibility of getting infected if they went to some areas at a specific time. The problem is that too much unnecessary information is disclosed – that’s why the public is able to track the infector down.Gender, age, an abbreviation of the name, job – these are personal information that is unnecessary for being disclosed to the public. In addition, there is no need to tell the public whose house the infector stayed in during her time in London; just saying she was in London during when is enough. Disclosing this kind of information makes me doubt if the government personnel who do so are very gossip – Many people would also gossip about colleagues. Anyway, of course, the public is able to track the infector down with this type of personal information.
Second, certainly, the Vietnamese government shouldn’t let the public watch a live stream of a meeting about the young woman’s (the infector’s) medical condition. But that doesn’t mean footprints of an infector can’t be provided. A live stream of a meeting and footprints of an infector are different things. It’s a mystery why a government gives a live stream of a meeting about an infector’s medical condition. Although the infector is a case that occurs at the time the Vietnam government wanted to declare Vietnam free of the pandemic, and certainly being a case at this special time in Vietnam would receive much attention, simply telling the public “the infector is in the hospital to receive treatments”, or “the infector is fully recovered” is enough. I really don’t understand why the Vietnamese government provide a live stream of meeting. But again, that doesn’t mean footprints of an infector can’t be provided. As I said, providing footprints lets the public can be aware of the possibility of getting infected if they went to some areas at a specific time.
Third, information on the place of residency also needs to be removed. Although I do think that the intention is good because it’s about residents in that area can be aware of the possibility of getting infected, there is a better way. Doing a throughout epidemic survey of an infector in terms of whom this infector has contacted is enough, rather than publishing which street an infector lives at. First, the original disclosed information on residency is too detailed. It discloses “which street”. The government can be not this detailed by only disclosing which district, but a district is big, so disclosing such information will become useless. This concern makes me move to the next point. Second, at first, I want to add that letting the chief of a village personally inform the neighbors of a specific infector about the case and that they have to notice their health condition. However, such actions could make an infector be discriminated against by neighbors in that area. Therefore, considering the two points, I suggest just doing a throughout epidemic survey is enough.
South Korea
Bill Gates thinks that it’s unacceptable in the U.S for the publishment of such information, despite that South Korea restricts some of the data after regional governments gave out too many details about people’s movements after then. Let’s see what the situation was in South Korea.
Two professors wrote an article critizicing the surveillance of South Korea. The article points out, “When the media reported on the case, some included the names of the clubs while others labeled them specifically as gay clubs. As the number of cases increased, Korean citizens and news agencies targeted queer people and their so-called “hedonist lifestyles” and “immoral practices” as the latest viral vectors. Some citizens have even taken to publishing personal information and pictures of suspected queer patients online. ” The article comments based on the above event, “Pandemic surveillance is inherently biased, predicated on the data that enters through its systems and algorithms, and thus it is not built to adequately or properly engage with gender and sexual minorities. Surveillance, more broadly, is dependent on the assumption that individuals have nothing to hide [15]https://items.ssrc.org/covid-19-and-the-social-sciences/covid-19-fieldnotes/pandemic-surveillance-and-homophobia-in-south-korea/ .”
Talking about the problem of the above event which involves discrimination toward Queer, in the article, the professors say, “We contend that the activists’ critique of the extent of personal details shared with the public speaks to the broader discriminatory functions and mechanisms in South Korea’s surveillance assemblage—intentionally or not”, which I agree. According to one of the concerns raised by Queer in South Korea and discussed in the article, certain personal information was disclosed by the government including gender, age, place of residency, and nationality – much of these are as same as the information disclosed in Vietnam [16]https://items.ssrc.org/covid-19-and-the-social-sciences/covid-19-fieldnotes/pandemic-surveillance-and-homophobia-in-south-korea/ . It is worth noting that the South Korea government remove such information after the request from the Queer group.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea also expressed the same concern about such disclosure of information by the South Korean government as the Queer group’s. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea indicates, “However, the authorities are currently providing more information than is necessary to stop the spread of disease, leading to a violation of privacy and human rights of an infected person. Furthermore, the release of personal data may result in secondary damages as patients become the target of criticism, taunts and hatred online.” The Commission calls on the authorities to publish the time and names of locations visited by infected people, rather than providing the travel history of each individual, and specify disinfection and protective measures taken by the public health authorities for these locations [17]https://www.humanrights.go.kr/site/program/board/basicboard/view?menuid=002002001&pagesize=10&boardtypeid=7003&boardid=7605315 .
I agree with the concern of over-disclosure of information by the Queer group and the human right organization in South Korea, but there are some of the points expressed by the two professors I don’t agree with. Here is my explanation.
First, as in the case in Vietnam, much information indeed is indeed unnecessary to be disclosed, including gender, age, nationality, and place of residency. For the place of residency, my suggestion is as same as the one I make for the Vietnam case. In terms of the request from the human right group that publish the times and names of locations rather than providing the footprints of each individual, I think it’s a good idea as it not only can avoid the public target specific individuals, but also make the information more organized and easy to take in by the public, which is a benefit that the human right group and the South Korea government didn’t think of. For example, a person who lives in Seoul can just check the timeline of when he went out, then check what places are places that an infector went to at that specific time, rather than reading each infector’s footprint history one by one in Seoul, as there must be some specific timeframes which are unnecessary for some citizens in every footprint history. However, I also think a footprint history of an individual without personal information such as gender and age probably won’t disclose who that individual is. So I believe that even without this change, publishing the footprints of an individual is still acceptable as long as unnecessary personal information is removed. Anyway, as changing the way footprint history is disclosed makes information more organized and more efficient to read for civilians, I support such a change of disclosure, and I also recommend Taiwan government and any government which publish footprints of infectors have this change.
Second, with respect to the comment of the two professors that says, “Pandemic surveillance is inherently biased, predicated on the data that enters through its systems and algorithms, and thus it is not built to adequately or properly engage with gender and sexual minorities. Surveillance, more broadly, is dependent on the assumption that individuals have nothing to hide”, I have to point out that while the thought that systems and algorithms may cause discrimination toward some specific groups, which is a critical topic in the U.S, is right, this is not fully the problem of the systems, algorithms, and people who build these systems in this South Korea case. It’s more likely that the disclosure action is done by a human, not a system. So it’s about the information that was disclosed too much by humans. Even if they were disclosed automatically by a system, the media didn’t remove this information but reported them directly. It should still be mostly about humans disclosing too much information in this case, not a system doing so. “A system which is not built to adequately engage with gender and sexual minorities” is also not a problem in this case, because of the above reason I said – the disclosure action is more likely to be done by a human rather than a system and the media didn’t remove these information even if the information were handed to them by a system.
Though the part of the comment “Surveillance, more broadly, is dependent on the assumption that individuals have nothing to hide” is right, and many people will see the whole comment is still right even if they see what I above said because this part of the comment is right (Very important to note), this South Korea case still shouldn’t be taken as the problem is about the system and the algorithms. Again, the problem is mostly about humans disclosing too much information in this case.
In the above cases of Vietnam and South Korea, I do also think some information is unnecessary and needed to be removed in order to make the public unable to identify who a person is with that information. However, as long as they are removed, I believe publishing footprint history is not only acceptable but also the right thing to do for the public to find out if they have been exposed to some high-risk areas. Bill Gates thinks that such disclosure wouldn’t fly in the U.S despite some personal information being removed. I think it’s Americans who need to identify what the actual problems are behind the public shaming of these infectors, and it’s Americans’ perspectives need to be changed when the actual problems are identified accordingly.
By the way, despite that Taiwan’s way of dealing with footprint history is much better now – It removes personal information such as gender, and age, Taiwan also had similar disclosure when a first case is confirmed after 253 days of zero cases. The first case was a New Zealand pilot who refused to wear a mask when he was found on an airplane for not wearing a mask and went to many places spreading many persons. This case received many criticisms from the Taiwanese as it was this case who not wearing a mask that made Taiwan’s zero-case record stop. Though the action of this New Zealand pilot is unacceptable, the Taiwan government shouldn’t disclose the nationality of this pilot, too. Another news writing about the subsequent cases which were infected by this pilot case also discloses their age and nationalities which are provided by the Taiwan government [18]https://www.cna.com.tw/news/ahel/202012250269.aspx.
In addition , there was a case ( Case 771) that was infected by this pilot case. Although the command center of Taiwandid not disclose which company the Case 771 works for [19]https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Bulletin/Detail/FOaxJQTdMBVBymEUJXiU5A?typeid=48 , the company disclose itself [20]https://tw.stock.yahoo.com/news/廣明重訊-案771-為公司女員工-接觸者採檢均為陰性-083100022.html [21]https://www.businesstoday.com.tw/article/category/183027/post/202012220021/ . Case 771 became a target of gossip for Taiwanese. As the company is an affiliated enterprise of another Taiwan company, Quanta, and the company’s name is similar to Quanta, many people including some media just say Case 771 is from Quanta and gossip about Case 771 based on the disclosed information. According to a news, Taiwanese suspected the information of “Case 771 had closely contacted with the pilot case for 5 days” means sexual relationship [22]https://today.line.me/tw/v2/article/7GN3QM . Most Taiwanese weren’t aware of what is wrong with this event. The problem is that this is false defamation because there is no actual evidence but speculation, and such false defamation may hurt a targeted individual. What’s more, this defamation isn’t related to this pandemic; it’s about an individual’s personal life which no one should gossip. I suggest the Taiwanese stop gossiping by doing such baseless speculations. I also suggest Taiwan companies that do not tell the public about where a specific case work; simply cooperate with the command center and do all the necessary actions, including testing and quarantine, is enough. Certainly, other employees can know there is a colleague getting infected, but companies should educate employees not to spread such information online: This may make your colleague become a target.
8.(3) Alternative solution of contact tracing
Another point Bill Gates mentioned about contact tracing is the contact tracing App. He said such an App will be useless if the majority of people don’t use it. This is a common criticism of contact tracing and it’s indeed a disadvantage of a contact tracing App. Though it’s a disadvantage, I do need to mention that every technology has its limits, at least in our current era. Relatively speaking, another problem with contact tracing apps caught my attention: older people are not good at using technology. I personally like Singapore’s approach of sending out Bluetooth tracking devices to the elderly who are not good at using technology.
The Singapore government sent out Bluetooth tracking devices named “TraceTogether” to elderly people. It doesn’t have GPS, WIFI, or phone internet, so if a wearer is found to have contact with a confirmed case, the wearer must be contacted by a contact tracing specialist [23] … Continue reading. If you are interested, you can read this article to understand more detail.
Read Part 8
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Chrissy Slora
The articles published in this website are all written by Chrissy Slora. Chrissy Slora aims to make people learn about how the world can be better and provide her intelligent and wise insight by writing about various topics from technology to issues happening in the world. Follow her on social media: Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin