17:17

Good to see that PEPP-PT is about to go up in flames by breaking central promises (privacy; anonymity) even before the project leaves the vaporware stage.

The thing that doesn’t seem obvious to many is: PEPP-PT & Co aren’t temporary solutions that will be shut down, once the crisis is over, because COVID-19 is not going to go away any time soon. Even if we were able to get <insert your country here> COVID-19 free within the next couple of months, there are lots of places with poor medical care (slums, refugee camps,…) all over the world where the virus can survive and from where it can be imported again at any time.

Contact tracing only makes sense at the point of time, the virus gets imported (not during the epidemic). Since we never know if/when that will happen, we also can’t de-install our tracing apps. In other words, we are looking at a long lasting privacy invasion. Hopefully, nobody is still as naive is to believe that during this time (we are talking decades at best till the virus can be eradicated worldwide), the system won’t be repurposed and abused.