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Susan Landau, professor of cybersecurity and computer science at Tufts University, is the author of the book. Number of People, A book on how and why contact tracking apps are created. He also published a attempt science He argued last week that new technology to support public health needs to be thoroughly examined for ways it can contribute to the injustices and inequalities that are already entrenched in society.

“The epidemic will not be the last thing people face,” Landau writes, urging communities to “use and build the tools and support health care policy” that will protect people’s rights, health and safety, and achieve greater healthcare equity.

This interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.

What have we learned since the launch of Covid apps, specifically about how they might work differently or better?

The technologists working on the apps were really careful about making sure you were talking to the epidemiologists. What they probably didn’t think about enough was this: These practices will potentially change who gets notified about exposure to covid. They will change the delivery [public health] Services. That conversation didn’t happen.

For example, if I had received an exposure notification last year, I would call my doctor and he would say, “I want you to get tested for covid.” Maybe I would isolate myself in my bedroom and my husband would bring me food. Maybe I wouldn’t go to the supermarket. But other than that, not much has changed for me. I do not use buses. I’m not a food service worker. Receiving an exposure notice is really different for these people. You need social services to support them, which is something public health knows.

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If you receive an exposure notification in Switzerland and the government says, “Yes, you need quarantine”, “What is your job? Can you work from home?” And if you say no, the government will come with some financial support to stay at home. This engages the social infrastructure to support exposure reporting. It wasn’t in most places – the USA, for example.

Epidemiologists study how the disease spreads. public health [experts] Look at how we deal with people and they have a different role.

Are there other ways to design apps differently? What would make them more useful?

I think there’s definitely a debate that 10% of apps actually collect locations for medical purposes only to understand the spread of disease. When I spoke to epidemiologists in May and June 2020, they said, “But if I can’t tell where it’s spreading, I lose what I need to know.” This is a management issue by Google and Apple.

There’s also the issue of how effective it is. This is linked to the equity issue. I live in a somewhat rural area and the closest house to me is a few hundred meters away. I will not receive a Bluetooth signal from someone else’s phone resulting in an exposure notification. If my bedroom is directly across from the bedroom of the apartment next door, I can get loads of exposure notifications if the person next door is sick – the signal can go through wooden walls.

Why has privacy become so important to designers of contact tracking apps?

Your location is truly illuminating because it reveals who you’re sleeping with or whether you’re standing at the bar after work. It shows if you go to church at seven o’clock on Thursdays, but not at any other time, and that’s when Alcoholics Anonymous meets up at church. It is clear that it is very dangerous for human rights workers and journalists to track who they are with because it exposes their sources. But even for the rest of us you spend time with – the intimacy of people – it’s something very special.

“The end user is not an engineer… he is your uncle. She is your child sister. And you want to have people who understand how people use things.”

Other countries use a protocol with more location tracking, for example Singapore.

“We will not use your data for other things,” Singapore said. Then they changed and they use it for law enforcement purposes. And the practice that started as a volunteer is now spread to office buildings, schools, etc. required to enter. The government has no choice but to know who it’s spending time with.

I’m curious about your thoughts on some of the bigger lessons for building public tech in a crisis.

I work in the cybersecurity field and it took us a really long time to realize that there was a user at the other end and not an engineer sitting in the security group at Sun Microsystems or Google. your uncle. She is your child sister. And you want to have people who understand how people use things. But it’s not something engineers are trained to do – it’s something public health workers or social scientists do, and these people need to be an integral part of the solution.