Day: May 3, 2020

Yeah, Yeah

I’m using technology now. But I’ve been offline most of the weekend. It’s been nice and quiet.

This started accidentally but eventually because something that I preferred.

Here’s the story:

I was looking at and writing what should have been a short piece about the Google / Apple Coronavirus tracking application.

I have reservations about the app for privacy reasons. I get that the app is supposed to help health departments react quickly and efficiently to potential outbreaks. It also makes sense that an app, as an extension of our technology would be the first thing that anyone thought about. 

My concerns about the app go deeper. When does the app go away? Who sees this information? Who could see this information? With the inevitable feature creep that all applications undergo, how long would it be before the app would be tracking other public health concerns?

What might that look like? Would we suddenly be tracking Measles, Smallpox, hepatitis? Admittedly this on the surface would seem like a good idea. But what happens when other diseases or conditions are being tracked?

We’re seeing authoritarian behaviors “For the Public Good”. It’s reasonable to ask just how long it would be before the authoritarianism pervaded all aspects of everyday life. Imagine the possibilities.

Your phone could automatically warn you that you were entering a hotspot. (That might be good.) But what happens if your phone informs authorities that you were in a no-tell motel with someone who had VD? Does that mean that you could be met by police at your home?

See, abuse of information is a simple thing and it’s deceptively easy to move from “Good” to “Evil” in just a step or two. Look at Google. They used to be the “Don’t be evil” company and  now… Well it was a short road wasn’t it?

This led me to wonder what applications on my phone are currently requesting to transmit location data. 

What I found was amazing and disturbing. A ton of my application are asking for access to GPS data and often a lot of them are transferring that data as well.

So I started thinning out the applications by turning off their access. What this will do to the day to day operations of these applications I have no idea, time will tell.

Then I realized that these apps existed on all my devices. Phone, pad, watch, computer and  each device had to have each application’s access turned off.

Why for example, does a drugstore app need to know where I am?

Then I noticed that Siri was also asking for location data. Why? Siri shouldn’t need access to location. Then as I was looking at Siri’s settings I realized that Siri was listening on all my devices all the time. On the one hand Siri listening is convenient. On the other hand Siri is listening all the time. Is that something that I really want?

After several hours and shocks, I came to the conclusion that the most expedient way to deal with what was becoming technological overload was to power the tech down.

That was when I made another interesting discovery. If I powered down the phone and watch, then applied power, these devices powered back up. My watch couldn’t be powered down at all while it was on its charger. Hmmm, interesting.

I grabbed my nice automatic winding watch and powered everything down.

This let me process on the rabbit-hole I’d been sucked down, without the distraction of the technology asking for my input or reminding me of stuff. It was nice to breathe.

Now that I’ve gotten past the tons of SPAM and the missed messages I’ll make choices about applications and move forward.