Coding For COVID-19?

App developers and data artists offer new ways of tracking the path of the Coronavirus

- Divya Kala Bhavani

As more people across the country are encouraged to work from home, televised news, social media and online forums combined can either be an enlightening or fear-mongering source of information.

And with social distancing now a thing, one can only look at their phone or laptop so many times a day for accurate updates about the spread of COVID-19. Fortunately, a few tech companies are looking to make a contribution to eradicate the fake news floating around, using apps backed by data from official health organisations and medical institutes.

First, the world saw an app launched on February 8 by NHC, General Office of the State Council and China Electronics Technology Group Corporations (CETC) with support from other government agencies.

This app’s goal is to help people find their risk of contracting coronavirus referred to as ‘close contact detector’. Users must provide their phone number, name and ID number to check if they were in close contact — being in close distance, without any effective protection, with confirmed, suspected or mild cases when the person was ill or asymptomatic — with an infected patient.

A February 11 article by MIT Technology Review critiques the app, explaining, “Such an app would not be possible without the Chinese government’s pervasive, high-tech surveillance of its citizens. A national video camera network, facial recognition software, and Artificial Intelligence combine to ensure that anonymity is almost impossible, although it is not clear which elements are being used to power the app. In any case, it is unlikely to be controversial in China, where attitudes to privacy and freedom differ to the West’s.”

However, there is no concrete information on the accessibility of this app to those outsides of China.

A map for mankind