Security News > 2020 > March > Authorities Eye Using Mobile Phone Tracking COVID-19’s Spread
Authorities in the United States and Israel are eyeing ways to use mobile-phone and other location-based data to help control the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19, raising serious privacy concerns about the practice of using and sharing people's personal data during the time of a global health crisis.
The government is mulling this potential compiling of people's personal and location-specific data with the purpose of mapping the spread of infection and using this knowledge to provide solutions to the problem, according to the report.
The idea is to keep a watchful eye on the movements of COVID-19 patients, a move that's raised an outcry of privacy in the country, according to a published report.
Israel's plan is to use mobile-phone tracking technology to recreate the history of movements of a person infected with COVID-19, in an aim to identify people who might have been exposed, Netanyahu said.
Another privacy advocate observed that while saving human lives is an essential goal during this time of crisis, using technology to violate privacy and civil liberties could be far more dangerous in the long run.