You don’t need to break the piggy bank to stop the piggy plague
Swine flu has been a hot topic recently. It would be a shame if Knowhere didn’t jump on the bandwagon and see if we
can use this deadly virus to earn some bacon. So can you avoid the piggy plague if you Knowhere? The land of the rising
sun says "hai, soo desu". It seems the Japanese government is considering an experiment to track and alert those who may be exposed to the virus (and people they come into contact with) through GPS-enabled phones.
Slightly Disappointed
On the one hand, I am slightly disappointed that Japan is not deploying an army of robo-nurses to battle swine flu.
On the other hand, I am really glad they're on the same page as Knowhere, using innovative location-based technologies to solve bad-ass problems.
However, contrary to the views expressed by Wireless Watch Japan, I believe that this can easily be done without invading people’s ‘privacy’.
Protecting your privacy is about having the ability to keep your personal information private, if you believe that it is in your interest to do so. People do voluntarily released personal information, sometimes for very trivial reasons. Why wouldn’t they give health professionals access to their location data so that they can avoid/be informed about contact with deadly diseases?
Privacy or Death
Of course, it's not like you can only have one or another - privacy or death. If you are really worried about your privacy, you can limit how people use your location data. For example, if the Japanese government is running their experiment with Knowhere, our location filter can automatically identify people who were exposed to the person that's carrying the virus without looking at their whole travel history. So it's not like the government would trace your everystep on Google Street View - the system would just create an automatic alert telling people that they may have been in contact with the virus.
Given the current economic situation, a good solution also has to be affordable - this is why Knowhere is a winner. Knowhere can not only protect people's privacy, it can do it very cheaply. With a slight rejiggin of our existing system, we can analyse the data people uploaded to find how the virus may have spread, we can run automatic alerts to show the nearest hospital for people who’ve been to the ‘contamination zone’, and we can produce reports on the potential spread of the virus in a few clicks.
Now think about all the silly photos you’ve uploaded to the cyber space, think about all the times you willingly gave away your personal information to win competitions or a coupon for a free coffee. Now tell me you treasure your privacy so much that you won’t upload your location data to find out if you’ve been exposed to the piggy plague…or whatever new virus that’s going to wipe us off this planet!