Digital COVID contact tracing

One of the reasons our efforts to control the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 has not been as effective is the absence of contact tracing. It was not given importance by the Department of Health (DOH) in the same way they minimized need for mass testing.

There was a proposal to allocate funds for mass hiring of contact tracers. Someone suggested using the out-of-work jeepney drivers to do contact tracing. It would be an economic stimulus effort at the same time.

On the other hand, digital tracing was widely used in Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, greatly helping these countries not just to flatten, but also bring down their curves.

I mentioned in a previous column that when (Ret.) Gen. Eliseo Rio, Jr was still usec of DICT, he was working on developing a local digital solution for contact tracing.

Last week Rio posted on Facebook his experience on this project. As usual, politics and favoritism made the effort fail before it could be launched.

Digital contact tracing uses location of mobile phones to determine the spread of Covid-19. As Rio explained it, the locations of the cell phone of a positively tested carrier is tracked relative to the locations of the cell phones of other people he/she may have come in close proximity with.

A message could then be sent to all probable contacts to have themselves tested, and if found to be positive, their cell phones would have the records of phones that they may have been in contact with, and so on and so forth.

Rio pointed out that we need internet connectivity of mobile phones that are at least 3G capable. Here, around 20 to 30 million subscribers still use 2G phones. About 20 percent of NCR has no or poor mobile internet connectivity, the percentage in other areas even much higher.

That is why, Rio said, no single app or method could prove effective in the Philippine setting. It must be a combination of manual contact tracing and various apps now available that can be used even with 2G phones.

It will need the cooperation of telcos to make available location data of their subscribers through their call data records (CDRs). And in this pursuit for the greater good, the privacy of our citizens must be protected.

Says Rio: Our citizens must be assured that all data regarding their mobile numbers and their location tracked during the pandemic period will be deleted with no copies made. After the emergency ends, they will no longer be tracked.

Data privacy experts worry that StaySafe, the tracking app chosen by IATF, is borderline spyware that may intrude on the privacy of citizens beyond the epidemic. According to Rappler, they cited these concerns:

StaySafe has seven “dangerous” permissions, so-called because it involves the access of personal data (like text messages and contacts) or system features (like phone camera and location).

“Why do they need access to the camera? Another alarming permission would be reading and writing on contacts, SMS, and contact details. They can also delete your contacts. It’s like borderline spyware,” Israel Brizuela, CEO of data privacy consulting firm ePrivacyNow and member of the National Association of Data Protection Officers of the Philippines, told Rappler.

In a review of such apps, the Data Protection Excellency Network (DPEX) identified StaySafe as having “excessive permissions.” DPEX is a Southeast Asian organization that does research in data privacy practices.

Its analysis of Southeast Asian contact-tracing singled out the Philippines for using a 3rd party developer. Most apps they analyzed were developed by government bodies.

Indeed, the only government agency that has the mandate to manage all of these is DICT, to which the National Telecoms Commission and National Privacy Commission are attached. It cannot be done by any other government agency, much less by a private company.

Rio describes StaySafe “as a health monitoring app with a location tracker, but has no contact tracing capability. It just generates a database of cell phone numbers with their location, useful for surveillance of people who reported themselves with symptoms, but of little value to people who report themselves as healthy.

“It works only with 3G capable and above phones and only in areas with mobile internet connectivity. For contact tracing using mobile phones to be effective, at least 60 percent of all subscribers (around 70 million) must be using the app. Right now, only a little more than one million have registered in StaySafe.

“Dr. Eric Tayag of DOH, in an on-line House of Representatives hearing in the afternoon of May 12, testified that StaySafe has still to prove itself as an effective contact tracing app. Yet even with this limitation of StaySafe, including concerns in privacy issues, IATF is no longer interested in considering any other contact tracing app.”

Rio informed the NTF implementor, Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr, that there are a number of other Covid-19 apps being offered that need to be vetted.

Galvez proposed to IATF the formation of an Information System Task Group to look at all Covid-19 apps to assess their ability to get the job done and also to ensure that privacy and security issues of all collected Covid-19 data are addressed.

“However,” Rio explained, “not only was this proposal of Sec. Galvez disregarded by IATF, I was eased out from the government at this crucial time with the President accepting my four-month old resignation.

“I have nothing against StaySafe.PH as an app as long as it is properly categorized as to its capability… To say that it is the only contact tracing app that the government will depend upon has no scientific basis whatsoever.

“The reason I broke my silence is that this country is facing a second wave of this pandemic, much worse than the first that could make all our efforts in the past three months go to waste.”

Oh well… no good deed goes unpunished, Gen Rio.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco