[Air-L] About that COVID-19 app your university just required you to install...

[Christian Sandvig]

Dear AIR-L friends,

I bet many of you are among the millions who are just about to be required
to install a new coronavirus-related app by your university. I'm writing to
announce that the ESC Center has just released 15 best practices for
pandemic apps at US universities. It is a very short read. Here is the list:

http://esc.umich.edu/pandemic-apps/


My own personal takeaways are: [1.] App experts aren't recommending apps.
(At least, not for many of the things they are being deployed to do.) And
[2.] The apps being deployed right now by universities are deviating widely
from good practice in terms of human rights and software development.

These apps are doing all kinds of unexpected things in the name of the
pandemic. A great example is Albion College, which reportedly just deployed
the Genetworx Aura app to geofence its campus. If you live on campus and
decide to go into town, they lock you out of your house. Source:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/19/coronavirus-albion-security-flaws-app/

I'd be interested in any thoughts on how your university app measures up.

Please feel free to forward this if you know of a good audience for it.

Christian

--
Christian Sandvig
Director, Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC)
H. Marshall McLuhan Collegiate Professor of Information, Communication, &
Media
University of Michigan
http://umich.edu/~csandvig + http://esc.umich.edu/