Learning from China... ?

As long as all influenza viruses and their consequences up to the death toll are not reported equally, we wanted to stay away from the topic - if only because of the danger of infection - panic. Now a report in rbb24 has brought us to the topic of corona after all:

"In order to contain the spread of the corona virus, the authorities have to trace the contact routes of those infected, but this is usually very complicated and time-consuming.  Scientists are now also considering the use of mobile phone data for possible containment strategies".

Of course, it is hoped that such a query of personal data will also have advantages for the potential patient. It might be possible to find contact persons he would have forgotten and possibly avoid quarantine. This has already been successfully tried out in China ...

Let's leave the right to privacy and the DSGVO "because of the impending emergency" briefly unnoticed. What do you need to draw conclusions from the mobile phone data of a "suspected case"? Of course the mobile phone data of all other people who were also at these places, which have now been identified. All people are overlooked,

• who do not have a mobile phone with them or
• operate it in flight mode, or
• whose battery just died.

So the error of such evaluations can be as high as 10-20%, which would probably be within the range of what the memory of the person concerned could do. So this suggestion would actually be taken ad absurdum.

In addition, there is a huge technical effort, one would have to merge the movement profiles of all people in a new database or make them mergeable, because a query with all providers for a specific case would not be feasible. But this would make the dream of all interior ministries and secret services a reality.

Even though the rbb24 report always talks about voluntary participation, we know how quickly this can first become public pressure and then a regulation.
Resist the beginnings!

By a non-affected person, living without a mobile phone

Read more https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/thema/2020/coronavirus/beitraege/handydaten-kontakt-personen-moegliche-infektion-berlin-robert-koch-institut.html

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