# Portuguese government makes it "mandatory" to install COVID app on phones



## Deleted User (Oct 20, 2020)

Well, at least that's what they want folks to do.

Article: https://news.yahoo.com/battle-portugal-over-plans-compulsory-153043890.html

This to me isn't so much about tracking because Google already does wherever I go, but rather the panic, paranoia, chaos and fearmongering it can cause to others. People are already afraid enough as it is and apps like these aren't helping. It's not about me being "selfish" or "you don't care about the safety of others", I'm just a tad tired over hearing and being told what to do as if I didn't already (like; wash my hands).

Sure, I've heard the media talk about the numbers going up and the WHO, but for real, how can they still be trusted? They lie and exaggerate to keep people entertained while watching the news. Hell, the day the Frenchman was beheaded it wasn't even in the news, only the next day. So much for "real" news and keep up to date.

There are far bigger problems and this is what they spend their time on. Sigh.


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## notimp (Oct 20, 2020)

One looney thats now dead in france - not that newsworthy. Also by making that frontpage news, you would trigger whats called chilling effect, in effect helping that looney terrorists position, in helping him getting exactly what he wanted using terror.

Yeah, wonder why not more UK media does that, as Boesy really wanted to read more about it. To make more people more afraid. So in your 'not fake media' you want more terrorist propaganda?

So much on that.
-

On contact tracing. Main issue in many countries is, that follow up testing isnt fast enough where we stand right now. So even without app, people are getting informed, that they were in contact with someone who had it (questioning people about their whereabouts and close contacts, after they've tested positive), then need a test to know if they should self isolate or not. In many cases - today, they are waiting for results well over a week, which is where the tracing models break.

Without a test you wont self isolate yourself.

Issue with tracing apps is not tracking, but tracing. 

Meaning essentially the following:

First contact tracing is about 'relationship intensity' - which in a sense is even more problematic than tracking, because it is what people try to infer out of location tracking.

Social media contact profiles are pretty crap in relation to 'weighing' the importance of social contacts. You basically have a bunch of wannabes and networking efforts filling up systems with noise, which doesnt say much about actual relations.

Real life meeting schedules do. So in a sense, you are feeding companies with even more high quality data, doing mandatory (also important for data quality) tracing. Good news is, that you can design apps in a way, where none of this is tracked centrally - which means, with privacy still intact (if you switch out IDs, quite regularely, which you can do, and dont allow 'the nature of a message sent (in case of someone being affected)' leak out (so you dont make it identifyable as different, from other messages sent).).

Bad news is, that you mostly arent dealing with geniuses at the implementation level. Efforts from google and apple should have made that less of an issue by now, and those APIs are actually designed with data privacy in mind, that should not be easily circumventable. Even though we are still talking about trust here on some level.
-

More issues come in, when you are taking false positives and false negatives into account. Because bluetooth proximity tracing isnt exactly exact. So you have a high rate of false ids on that level, that leads to a higher need of PCR (low false positive rate) tests out there as a follow up, which you dont have.

So I dont know exactly, what this decision is informed by. At least other european countries get statistical data that way.  I dont see this becoming an implementation trend in the rest of europe anytime soon. 

edit:
Aaaaand its already dead. 

The Latest: Portugal backs away from mandatory tracing app
https://www.businessinsider.com/the...-from-mandatory-tracing-app-2020-10?r=DE&IR=T


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## notimp (Oct 21, 2020)

Also all of the WHO accusations of Trump are pretty much entirely BS.

See: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52294623
or


Basically: WHOs has a funding issue, caused by the US. (At the same time the US is still financing the largest part of their funding ( https://www.who.int/about/planning-finance-and-accountability/how-who-is-funded ), which is a sure fire sign, that the institution isnt working against public US interest.) And has to use an official language thats 'highly diplomatic', to retain access in states that are not run democratically.

If paired with a US president, that has a binary amount of braincells, this results in 'WHO bad, because confusing'?

But seemingly only in situations, where said US president needs a scapegoat for not having acted at all.


Main takeaway of the John Oliver clip, btw is, that the entire WHO financing amounts to the annual running costs of ONE (in numbers: 1) major hospital anywhere in the western hemisphere.

So if Trump wants to act like a baby - US cuts financing here (not that huge of an issue in terms of domestic influence needed to stop payments (which because of the financing snafu caused by the US in the last years has been largely 'voluntary'.)), then reinstates it (hopefully), once acting like a baby is not an issue anymore.


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## Viri (Oct 21, 2020)

Okay, that's just creepy, being forced to install an app on your phone by the gov.


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## notimp (Oct 21, 2020)

Viri said:


> Okay, that's just creepy, being forced to install an app on your phone by the gov.


Yup. Checks out.


> "I hate to be authoritarian, but we have to get this pandemic under control," Prime Minister Antonio Costa said Thursday.


Definitely creepy. 

At the same time, you will not like any of the advancements in 'digital national currency' - whatsoever... 

(At the same time, SWIFT is largely used by the US to track international transaction flows for the past 40 years.  So is private credit card company data. )

But rest assured, that this was just a minor case of 'dumb politician' on an ego trip, speaking his mind in an interview situation, and then having to row back doublespeed, because what he said, made no sense to anyone, but his own authoritarian ego. 

edit: Lets have a picture of the guy in question on display here:






No further questions.
--


edit: And somewhere along the line, a bigger issue still remains, that large Big Data companies are financing 'whitewashing operations' to act as agencies that "definitely completely anonymize user data"
https://www.fintechfutures.com/2018/03/mastercard-and-ibm-join-forces-for-new-data-trust-truata/
https://www.truata.com/about-us/
https://www.truata.com/about-us/board-members/

Mhhmmm. Those good proprietary processes....
https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/73053/ibm-and-mastercard-combine-to-combat-gdpr-with-truata

thats then sold back to anyone who has interest and or a seat on the board...

(Thats the whats out there is already problematic issue.)

... or foreign intelligence operations (NSA full take on internet data, chinese efforts on profiling persons of interest in Europe...).

edit: https://grapevine.is/news/2020/09/29/400-icelanders-named-in-zhenhua-data-leak/
(Thats the 'whats possible with targeted tracking today' is already problematic issue.)

But yes, contact tracing with no anonymization would have been highly problematic. But that doesnt have to be the issue here. (There are technical solutions to solve that.) Also there are bigger implementation issues, that prevent 'making apps mandatory' a sensible approach.


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## FAST6191 (Oct 21, 2020)

Do we know the takeup rate of phones there? I had not heard Portugal was like China in this regard.

Hope it does not come to pass either.



notimp said:


> One looney thats now dead in france - not that newsworthy. Also by making that frontpage news, you would trigger whats called chilling effect, in effect helping that looney terrorists position, in helping him getting exactly what he wanted using terror.



One nutbar is a nutbar, two is a trend. We are at what now?

I am curious if this does go in for copycat stuff though as I have not seen how it plays out for this sort of thing. Those mistaking a school for a firing range do seem to pay attention but I am curious here.


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## notimp (Oct 21, 2020)

FAST6191 said:


> One nutbar is a nutbar, two is a trend. We are at what now?


In my calculation that meens two nutcases.  I think we all know the cause of that 'trend' dont we? So what is gained from promoting it? Never make such a thing a page one story - not until cars are exploding left and right on the streets.

Which brings us to counter intelligence, if its a coordinated effort on the part of several guys planing something, blame them. If its an individual, not needing any fertilizer for their action, count your losses, and remove them from the occasion as quickly as possible.

Its also not that you hide such a story, but that you dont promote it. And that you always add how its ended. Guys dead, society not impressed.


FAST6191 said:


> Do we know the takeup rate of phones there? I had not heard Portugal was like China in this regard.


Cell phones are cheap and how you arrange social meetups and and occasional flings these days, take a guess.

Main issue still being, that bluetooth signal propagation is not perfectly spherical, so how your cellphone is oriented in your pocket decides in in what direction it has more signal strength. BT signal strength is also not uniform between different cellphone models. Signal strength is lowered by barriers that wouldnt be barriers to Covid, and the entire model not accounting for time or virus load (because of low data quality in the first case (better fall on the side of being too careful). So one person can rack up the needs of thousands of tests over a week. According to that model.Which at one point you dont need anymore, if your issue has become in time testing.

At that point, better not play it up too much, or you are designing yourself public outrage ('why has testing not been scaled up  more').

Also, that part:


> Costa’s plan for compulsory use was widely criticized as unworkable. Among other complaints, police said the measure was unenforceable, and legal experts said it was unconstitutional.


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## notimp (Oct 21, 2020)

Here is the structural part of what follows on that nutcase issue:
https://www.dw.com/en/france-shutters-mosque-in-paris-after-teachers-beheading/a-55333771

edit: Smartphone penetration rate in portugal is at around 65% in 2020 (for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_smartphone_penetration ) thats lower than I expected.


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## Spring_Spring (Oct 21, 2020)

Now what I don't understand is what does such an app even do, how does it prevent the spread of anything?

Or is it just an excuse for some huge surveillance system >:3

I also wonder if they were going to install it subtly and try to hide it, or just throw it in your face like a humiliation and you can do nothing about it >:3


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## MegaV2 (Oct 21, 2020)

Yeah, no. I'll just use some old phone for calls and shit.
This shit country had lots of chances to properly control the virus since we were one of the later EU countries to get it, but they fucked up. I ain't installing some app to slow down my phone even further, specially when I didn't even receive any of the money that they promised despite having been unemployed for 5 months straight.


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## ut2k4master (Oct 21, 2020)

Flofflewoffle said:


> Now what I don't understand is what does such an app even do, how does it prevent the spread of anything?


it notifies you if you have been in the proximity of someone who has tested positive for the corona virus so you can isolate yourself and get yourself tested


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## notimp (Oct 21, 2020)

Flofflewoffle said:


> Now what I don't understand is what does such an app even do, how does it prevent the spread of anything?
> 
> Or is it just an excuse for some huge surveillance system >:3


Depends on the concept. 
https://www.platformexecutive.com/n...n-coronavirus-contact-tracing-apps/?mode=list

EU model does risk calculation on a central server, but with anonymized session ids (although there is a unique ID generated every time you install the app, that allows data to be dispersed to the original registered server if you leave country), swiss model does risk analysis and contact matching decentralized as well, which means, that a larger amount of data has to be transfered.

EU model, is especially designed so you can alter the risk assessment algo centrally (swiss model would have you need to keep all user apps at the most updated state to do the same), and in case you'd be infected, would track anonymized contacts centrally, including a timestamp id (no location data), in the EU model people are then asked to give all necessary personal data to a central sevice, once they've been tested positive. This helps with risk assesment, and contacting the person afterwards (additional in person follow up).

So if it comes to fine detail, "app" does whatever you want it to do.. 

At some point its supposed to pop up a 'risk profile' for you if you were in direct contact with an infected person, depending on if government wants that.  (If hospitals full, less 'risk profile' warnings would pop up..  ), at which point you get tested, because you've been in contact with a Covid infected person.

How apps work on the technical level is bluetooth beacons. Cellphones send out unique ids, which get changed over time, and record each others ids if in close proximity.

You are creating social graphs.


edit: Oh, and false positive rate is up to 50%. 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...racing-app-has-false-positive-rate-almost-50/


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## spotanjo3 (Oct 21, 2020)

Boesy said:


> Well, at least that's what they want folks to do.
> 
> Article: https://news.yahoo.com/battle-portugal-over-plans-compulsory-153043890.html
> 
> ...



I am totally agree with you.. 100 percent! Absolutely!


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## Spring_Spring (Oct 21, 2020)

If only, if only, it was all not so politicized and controversial, we could actually work together and make a real effort . . . what an utopian dream x3

I would be willing to do a lot more and even install an app if it wasn't all loaded with political symbolism.


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## Nightwish (Oct 21, 2020)

First of, let me be clear, it was an unconscionable proposal for legal and ethical reasons that wasn't anywhere near a silver bullet. I don't know why it was posted yesterday, it's dead.
The app is a helper for contact tracing, nothing more, nothing less; it's as anonymous as it can be and it triggers on fairly limited circumstances, but even that is somehow too hard to explain - not that it would have mattered, it was too late in coming by the time tiredness and conspiracy were ingrained.
The statement came at a bad week for the government, following controversial changes (IMHO for stupid reasons, but whatever), and it managed to undermine trust in the government, fuel the antidemocratic drive, and lose control over the following of anti-pandemic measures. Well done, Mr. Costa!
Having said that, arguments against not voluntarily installing the damn thing are mostly plain dumb. Fear of getting tracked, when a) it doesn't, b) you didn't peep when you lost a lot more rights to fight the incomparably much less deadly loonies mentioned above. Or that you need a very recent phone, when mine isn't and runs it. Or that BT LTE drains your battery quickly. Or that most people give much more information (than the hypothetical, mind) away carelessly to a company that refuses to follow the law.
Let me mention it again, the "real news" loonies are much less deadly! By far. And, BTW, the potential consequences of Covid are definitely not confined to death, organ damage isn't fun.



MegaV2 said:


> This shit country had lots of chances to properly control the virus since we were one of the later EU countries to get it,


How, exactly? Intermittent lockdown is a no go, as paying people to stay home can't be done, and we need to keep getting tourists year round to keep our stupid model going.
A full lockdown wasn't in the cards, business had to keep going because the economy is export-based. Beaches had to be open because of tourists and bankruptcies; schools must be open because not learning is awful and a drain on productivity of worker parents. So on, and so forth, schwarze null uber alles. You're an expendable cog, get out of your comfort zone.


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## notimp (Oct 21, 2020)

Nightwish said:


> The statement came at a bad week for the government, following controversial changes (IMHO for stupid reasons, but whatever), and it managed to undermine trust in the government, fuel the antidemocratic drive, and lose control over the following of anti-pandemic measures. Well done, Mr. Costa!
> Having said that, arguments against not voluntarily installing the damn thing are mostly plain dumb. Fear of getting tracked, when a) it doesn't, b) you didn't peep when you lost a lot more rights to fight the incomparably much less deadly loonies mentioned above.


Perceptive, but dont be troubled too much.  For contact tracing on smartphones to be very effective, it should reach a penetration of 60%. As far as I've read, no country in europe has achieved that. 

The argument that you are not getting tracked and therefore shouldnt worry is not accurate. Because yes you are being tracked, in terms of your physical relations to others. If needed, you could even add location tracking as well. (Position a beacon with a known ID at the parliament, dream up how you'd use it later..  )

So talking about how data would be anonymized, and who is gaining access to what at what stage, was absolutely needed. I'm deeply sorry that it hurt high-felutant plans of contact tracing based 'crowd immunity' in society - but those didnt even pan out in Singapur where even a forced implementation didn't prevent a second wave.

In a sense its the engineers dream of forming desired behavior, that doesnt work.


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## Nightwish (Oct 28, 2020)

notimp said:


> In a sense its the engineers dream of forming desired behavior, that doesnt work.


Heh, don't get me wrong, I love surveillance capitalism as much as the next informed person, and Doctorow slapped me into me into acknowledging that adtech is a lot of empty marketing air, _for now. _And I know it doesn't substitute manual tracing, but I was still hoping it would be enough avoid some restrictions. Which is now moot, as everyone western country is lead by headless chicken and heads into collapse and inevitable lockdown.
Data could de-anonymized, as it always can, but I don't see it as much of an issue in a country that doesn't even attempt to persecute torrents due to lack of resources. For data that mostly could be subpoenaed from Google or service providers easily.

*shrug* I can wait it out just fine, if others want to increase their own risk, the food still reaches my table either way.


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## notimp (Oct 28, 2020)

Nightwish said:


> Heh, don't get me wrong, I love surveillance capitalism as much as the next informed person, and Doctorow slapped me into me into acknowledging that adtech is a lot of empty marketing air, _for now. _And I know it doesn't substitute manual tracing, but I was still hoping it would be enough avoid some restrictions. Which is now moot, as everyone western country is lead by headless chicken and heads into collapse and inevitable lockdown.
> Data could de-anonymized, as it always can, but I don't see it as much of an issue in a country that doesn't even attempt to persecute torrents due to lack of resources. For data that mostly could be subpoenaed from Google or service providers easily.
> 
> *shrug* I can wait it out just fine, if others want to increase their own risk, the food still reaches my table either way.


For someone that has read Doctorow, you havent understood very much. 

The entire principle of democracy rests on privacy principles that have to be upheld not 'for you' but for people who need it professionally, who will never be in a majority.

The entire principle of not building a surveillance state is a prerequisite not only for your generation and lets say - the current government, but also for a future one, you might not have imagined so far (fascist tendencies revival throughout europe, thats always taunted as a possibility, if Europe fails to tackle the migration crisis through democratic means f.e. which sounds impossible, but is used as a political argument for Europes reaction to the Moria refugee camp fires right now), same is true for principles like 'keeping data scarce' (only collect where needed, and for the purpose you need it', because you dont know how future governments will use data thats already collected and available. (Thats the main point of every contemporary witness that lived through a concentration camp in WW2, to this day.). The last point is on its way out already though, as Europe struggles to establish its own Big Data economy and players. (Which is seen as more important, business wise.) For now we have agreed to just maybe not give government a fulltake on movement data, or social relationship profiles. Even though private enterprises have them.

Yes data can always be cleaned and anonymized, but 'how well' matters. Current iterations of the Covid app do it quite well (two competing standards in europe.) But until you had those guidelines, f.e. in my country, you had private companies pitching in a few million EUR and some developers, just to get their brand name associated with a solution (freaking Accenture) - and to this day, one of the systems claims for data privacy rests on some of the data being discarded, after its been collected, in case of people that were infected and 'wrote in". (Risk processing for your potential contacts (anonymized ids) is done server side, not on your phone. So as more people write in (lets say 10% of your population), that database becomes bigger. Contacts are still anonymized, but at that point its important, that you dont have tables with 'anonymized id' that resolve to 'unique Google Play store ID' that resolves to 'every adnetwork in the world can deanonymize you at that point').

And again, 'I personally dont see the risk - now' isnt the issue. Those principles are upheld structurally, or democracy goes the way of the dodo. 

That said, more people using the app, would not hurt, right about now.

Although compliance is HORRIBLE - at the point, where people are supposed to report back, when they had Covid (very low numbers do report back), so at some point (add false positives and false negatives), you have to look at this and answer if it still does statistically, what it could in your models. And the answer to that is - no, for many countries currently.

Still - IF more people would use it, it would not hurt, right about now.

To prosecute 'every' torrent case is impossible for any legal system, just statistically (too many cases, you would flood your legal systems to the point of being overtaxed), you always aim for deterrance by installing a few precedent cases, that you then make very public - for public appeal.

Or you try to make the ISPs the arbiter of removing someones internet access, which has become something akin to a human right (ability to access the internet) at the very same time. So you tend not to do that as well (unless the people running your country are very stupid  ).


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## Taleweaver (Oct 28, 2020)

Boesy said:


> Well, at least that's what they want folks to do.


So in other words it's not mandatory? 

I get the concerns, but personally I find it hilarious that when I try to open the article, I'm greeted with a request to allow cookies.

Because yeah...if a global conglomerate (yahoo news in this case) wants to store your browsing preferences for no reason whatsoever but nobody gives a fuck. But when a government wants to use smart technology to battle a deadly pandemic, everyone's up in arms. Nice priority there. *slow clap*



Boesy said:


> Sure, I've heard the media talk about the numbers going up and the WHO, but for real, how can they still be trusted? They lie and exaggerate to keep people entertained while watching the news. Hell, the day the Frenchman was beheaded it wasn't even in the news, only the next day. So much for "real" news and keep up to date.


Lie and exaggerate to keep people entertained...and you're saying it's the WHO? As in "The World Health Organisation"? Not the music band The who? Not your local politician who talks to the WHO and then translates it into populist speech?
Hmm...sounds to me you're still suffering from cabin fever. I hope @notimp's video convinced you, because I can't really say it better than John Oliver. The short version: I trust the WHO far more than anyone else right now.




Boesy said:


> There are far bigger problems and this is what they spend their time on. Sigh.


Yes, I know: borat, south park and soccer without audience sucks. And? Are you going to keep treating the discussion section as your private blog?
You might disagree, but I'm getting fed up with how you treat the politics session as your personal blog. Do you even read the replies, or are you just "throwing it out there" ?


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## eyeliner (Nov 5, 2020)

MegaV2 said:


> Yeah, no. I'll just use some old phone for calls and shit.
> This shit country had lots of chances to properly control the virus since we were one of the later EU countries to get it, but they fucked up.


Get out of this country, then. We don't need you.


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## notimp (Nov 5, 2020)

eyeliner said:


> Get out of this country, then. We don't need you.


Weak argument.


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## eyeliner (Nov 5, 2020)

notimp said:


> Weak argument.


But still strong enough, but I'll make a better point, just because it's you: You don't like it, leave.

Is that better?


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## Nightwish (Nov 8, 2020)

Not really. I just wish they would say what measures they would prefer, for once.


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