The ‘saviour’ loan apps that trapped pandemic-struck Indians

‘The apps proliferated as the pandemic and the lockdown left millions in India jobless. While many working class jobs have returned, salaried professionals - from engineers and software developers to salesmen - and small businesses have struggled to survive. So the apps helped them out when they needed money quickly.

‘For loans as small as $150 and for periods as short as 15 days, these apps charge a one-time processing fee, a convenience fee and steep interest rates - some as high as 30%. Compare this to to Indian banks, which lend at 10-20% with a tenure of at least 12 months.

‘Like many other apps, at the time of download, these apps too ask for permission to access contacts and photo galleries. When an unsuspecting borrower agrees to this, they become more vulnerable.

"When I investigated one such case, I found that these apps are actually not only able to read and access your contact list, they're also capturing your images, videos and location. They also know many things about you - like, where you have actually used this money, to whom you have transferred this money," says cyber security expert Amit Dubey.’

Read here (BBC, Feb 13, 2021)

New Covid-19 tracing tool appears on smartphones

‘A Covid-19 tracing software tool has appeared in the settings of both Android phones and iPhones as part of an update of their operating systems. The "exposure notification" tool is switched off by default, and is not a tracing app itself. It enables an app to run in the background while still using Bluetooth. This lets the app measure the distance between two handsets - and then alert the phone owner if someone near them later tests positive for Covid-19.’

Read here (BBC, June 20, 2020)

How Singapore’s Covid-19 contact tracing app drew inspiration from a US high school project

‘Two US students developed a prototype app called kTrace in 2014, at the height of the Ebola epidemic. They won a prize but found no backers. But Singapore’s GovTech agency found it and the students shared code and advice to speed up the development of the city state’s TraceTogether app.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, June 10, 2020)

Coronavirus contact-tracing apps put users at risk, EU lawmaker says

‘These "tracing apps" are less effective in containing infections than human tracing because many people do not use these apps at all. It is completely illusory to assume that 60% or more of the population would use such an app. In Singapore, which has experience with tracing apps, only 20% of the population has downloaded it, in Austria only 5%. That makes the app's usefulness highly questionable. And it also poses very clear threats to privacy and our fundamental rights.’

Read here (DW, May 15, 2020)

Malaysia already has a contact tracing app (Gerak Malaysia) and it’s downloadable now

‘The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission is testing a beta app called Gerak Malaysia that can do just that and it uses location tracking...

‘At hospitals, the QR code can be used to determine your risk level and it will allow frontliners to assign you to the right queue. For example, if you’ve been to an area that was visited by a confirmed Covid-19 case, you will be flagged as a high-risk...

‘The QR code can also assist the police and armed forces at the roadblocks as they can determine whether you’re travelling within the permitted radius. This feature can potentially replace the approval letters that are required to be presented to the police. As a result, this feature can help speed up the checks and reduce congestion...’

Read here (The Malay Mail, April 17, 2020)

China's post-lockdown monitoring rides on existing hi-tech finance and social media platforms

‘The Chinese government has enlisted the help of the country's two internet giants — Alibaba (BABA) and Tencent (TCEHY) — to host the health code systems on their popular smartphone apps. Alibaba's mobile payment app Alipay and Tencent's messaging app Wechat are both ubiquitous in China, each used by hundreds of millions of people. Placing the health codes on these platforms means easy access for many...

‘Within a week of its launch, the Alipay health codes were rolled out in more than 100 cities across the country, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. By late February, more than 200 cities had adopted these QR codes, according to Alipay... Tencent's health code system had also expanded to more than 300 cities as of last month, according to the state-run Science and Technology Daily."

Read here (CNN, April 16, 2020)

MySejahtera app to help Malaysians manage Covid-19 outbreaks

‘MySejahtera is an application developed by the Government of Malaysia to assist in managing the COVID-19 outbreaks in the country. It allows users to perform health self-assessment on themselves and their family members. The users can also monitor their health progress throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. Also, MySejahtera enables the Ministry of Health (MOH) to monitor users’ health condition and take immediate actions in providing the treatments required.’

• For IOS, click through here 
• For Android, here
• For Huawei, here

Google provides info on community mobility in response to Covid-19

‘As global communities respond to COVID-19, we’ve heard from public health officials that the same type of aggregated, anonymised insights we use in products such as Google Maps could be helpful as they make critical decisions to combat COVID-19.

‘These Community Mobility Reports aim to provide insights into what has changed in response to policies aimed at combating COVID-19. The reports chart movement trends over time by geography, across different categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential.’

Read here (Google, constantly updated)

The mechanics of mobile contact tracing: Information collected can be quite extensive

‘A mobile phone App can make contact tracing and notification instantaneous upon case confirmation. By keeping a temporary record of proximity events between individuals, it can immediately alert recent close contacts of diagnosed cases and prompt them to self-isolate.

‘Apps with similar aims have been deployed in China. Public health policy was implemented using an App which was not compulsory but was required to move between quarters and into public spaces and public transport. The App allows a central database to collect data on user movement and coronavirus diagnosis and displays a green, amber or red code to relax or enforce restrictions on movement. The database is reported to be analysed by an artificial intelligence algorithm that issues the colour codes. The App is a plug-in for the WeChat and Alipay Apps and has been generally adopted...’

Read here (Science, March 30, 2020)