With this page I want to start a series of short pages in English language to explain my thoughts about contact tracing during Corona—what went right and what went wrong.
The first part is a bit Austria-centric, as I discuss the mistakes of the health authorities in my home country. The second part, though based on the Austrian `Stop-Corona-App’, applies to all European countries since they all tried the same electronic approach and failed.
This page will serve as an overview and index. I will try to complete the entries as time permits. The structure is planned as follows:
I. Seven disadvantages of using manual contact tracing exclusively
- Trying to use internal documentation systems for contact tracing
- Manual labor does not scale properly in the most critical period
- No notification of indirect contacts
- No notification of contacts in anonymous situations
- Restricting contact tracing to regular work hours
- Laborious time-consuming process pestering many people
- Submission of all citizens to the same process without rewards
II. Seven reasons why the Corona App failed
- Destroying trust by coercion
- Denying users control over app behaviour
- Non-deterministic operation principle and unreliable technology
- Benefits from use scale quadratic with adoption rate
- Choice of an inappropriate physical model (Bluetooth distance)
- No capabilities to track indirect contacts
- Again requesting blind submission of citizens without any insight
III. Suggested alternative approach
- Avoiding mistakes
(in crises, there is no guaranteed success but guaranteed failure) - Register contacts as person-to-location, not as person-to-person
- Do not perform any action without user initiation
- Show the user information as benefits
- Make participation voluntary and anonymous
- Separate contact tracing from binding legal consequences
- Do not tend to the fringe groups, provide a tool helpful to the middle
- Provide benefits to people participating
- Build trust slowly