People in many other countries will find South Korean surveillance hard to accept

雑誌Natureの編集部論説：封鎖解除戦略の接触追跡携帯アプリについて
欧米諸国は封鎖解除後戦略の詳細を詰めにかかっている。基本は韓国モデルだが、欧米は携帯アプリによる接触追跡（誰が誰と「密」に接触したかの記録）中心。この課題〜安全・プライバシー・正確性・リスクhttps://t.co/UvVMjLfosj

— Masahiro Ono 小野　昌弘 (@masahirono) May 2, 2020

But the foundation for South Korea’s COVID-19 response is a comprehensive testing strategy, backed by a nationwide network of contact-tracers who interview infected people and trace their contacts. The strategy includes the use of phone alerts, but not the Bluetooth apps being developed elsewhere. More importantly, it is based on a degree of surveillance that people in many other countries will find hard to accept.

When a person tests positive for COVID-19, a text alert is sent to everyone living nearby. This alert typically includes a link to a detailed log of the infected person’s movements — in some cases to the nearest minute. These movements are reconstructed from public data, such as closed-circuit television cameras. But the South Korean government is also permitted to access confidential records, such as credit-card transactions. The data are then stored centrally by government agencies. At the same time, people’s movements are anonymized and published online


Much attention has also been paid to Singapore’s TraceTogether app, which now has more than one million users. Although this amounts to roughly one-fifth of Singapore’s population, it still means that in any encounter between two randomly chosen people, there is only a 4% chance that both will have the app. This points to one of the deepest flaws in digital contract-tracing plans anywhere: the fact that only a fraction of any population is likely to have the app at all. And such efforts will miss out anyone who, for any reason, doesn’t have a smartphone


It’s not that digital contact tracing shouldn’t be done, but it should not be a substitute for human contact-tracing teams; nor should it be seen as a replacement for necessary COVID-19 testing.

韓国のようなアプリだと人権侵害が甚だしいからまともな国は採用しないだろうし、シンガポールのアプリでも二人が接触して、両者がアプリをダウンロードしている確率はたったの４％

アプリを人権侵害が少ない方法で導入するにせよ、結局、調査チームが主役にならざる得ないんだろうね。

だからこそ、調査チームの育成、拡充することが急務であるが、それをやっているか、どうか、いま現在の日本は。