Blockchain Experts Weigh in on Russia’s Controversial Coronavirus Tracking App

Published at: April 4, 2020

Experts suggest that blockchain technology could have been a better solution for handling coronavirus-related data in Russia.

Moscow’s COVID-19 App is pulled from Google Play

On March 25, an app called “Social monitoring” appeared in Google Play store. According to the app’s description, it was designed for social monitoring as well as for providing access to emergency services.

Users soon noticed that the app required many sensitive permissions, including geolocation, bluetooth pairing, biometric data, and calls. Notably, the data was also being openly transmitted without encryption. The backlash against the app led to a 1-star rating on Google Play by the morning of April 1. Later that day, the app disappeared from the store altogether.

Blockchain a better alternative

Russia is not the only country challenged by this crisis. Governments around the world are faced with difficult choices in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. There is a need to track people infected with the virus, but this is difficult to accomplish without compromising individual privacy and safety. In an effort to solve this dilemma, Cointelegraph investigated whether experts believe that blockchain technology could provide a workable solution.

Dr. Javier Estrella, GeoDB CTO, believes that the world is just coming to realize the value of distributed trust:

“The vast majority of people are just beginning to understand distributed ledger technologies and that the main advantages are not in the technical solutions, but in the approaches that lead to them. In essence, there is one feature that stands out in systems built using these technologies, distributed trust, and this is something totally new.”

Furthermore, he observed that the citizens have no guarantee that collected data will not be abused or mishandled:

“Who can guarantee citizens that this data will only be used to deal with the current health crisis and that the data made public by countries has not been altered?”

Igor Chugunov, founder and CEO of CREDITS (CS) blockchain platform, believes:

“A blockchain-based register of COVID-19 patients would present a maximally objective data which neither the patient nor the provider would be able to falsify. At the same time, cryptographically-secured decentralized data provides maximum privacy protection.”

Moscow’s government giving out smartphones

Moscow’s government has not given up on the idea of using technology to keep an eye on infected inhabitants. Aleksey Shapashnikov, speaker of the Moscow parliament, said that the city is developing a database to store photos and personal information about people infected with the virus.

On April 3, Moscow’s government began distributing smartphones to Muscovites with coronavirus whose symptoms are not severe enough for hospitalization. The only app that is installed on the phone is a tracking app which uses geolocation to make sure users are not leaving their homes. Those who violate the quarantine are instead hospitalized. Government servers are saving the data, which will delete the information once the pandemic is over.

Remaining hurdles to consider

It may seem that blockchain and healthcare data are a match made in heaven. However, there are certain hurdles to adoptability, like legal compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S., and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe. Though world governments are often resistant to innovation and decentralization, time will tell if the current crisis can alter these institutional predilections.

Tags
Blockchain
Health
Russia
Privacy
Coronavirus
Moscow
Related Posts
We don’t need immunity passports, we need verifiable credentials
As the first vaccines against COVID-19 roll out, governments and institutions across the world are scrambling to figure out how to provide proof that someone has been vaccinated. Paper certificates, PDFs, wristbands and mobile apps have all been suggested — and the former director of the Centers for Disease Control, Tom Frieden, and international human rights attorney Aaron Schwid urged the adoption of digital “immunity passports” as a way to reopen the world. In theory, their idea is great. In practice, it’s terrible. Or, as the Daily Beast put it: “Vaccine Passports Are Big Tech’s Latest Dystopian Nightmare.” As a …
Decentralization / Jan. 20, 2021
What lies ahead for crypto and blockchain in 2021? Experts answer
It would be fair to admit that after 2020 and all it has put us through, making any predictions for the upcoming year is most likely to be a game of blindfold. Meanwhile, I am certain that humanity has much to learn from its past transgressions, and will move forward by correcting our mistakes and weaknesses. That’s what we always do. Undoubtedly, the major driver of our development this year was the COVID-19 outbreak. The effects of the ongoing global pandemic on every aspect of our lives will form our future, and there are some tendencies we started last year …
Adoption / Jan. 4, 2021
You should care about decentralized identity in the wake of COVID-19
To navigate well in a digital world, we must be able to easily and securely establish our digital identity. Traditionally, a username, password and some trivial arcana like our first pet’s name have been key pieces of information held by institutions to establish our digital identity. Unfortunately, this system has come at a high cost. Trusting third parties to securely hold our personal data is a risky — and often losing — proposition. The number of hacks that have resulted in stolen personal data is staggering. In the top 15 data breaches, the personal data of 3.5 billion people have …
Technology / Oct. 5, 2020
Decentralization: Preserving Personal Privacy While Fighting COVID-19
In an effort to keep citizens safe, state authorities have rapidly implemented various emergency plans to curb the spread of COVID-19. In South Korea, the movements of infected citizens are being broadcasted via public text message. In Israel, the government has approved a law to track smartphones belonging to those suspected of being infected. In the United States, the government is in talks with Google and Facebook to access location data, and in the United Kingdom, data giant Palantir is merging data for the National Health Service to inform the nation’s response. The extent to which governments can leverage technology …
Decentralization / June 7, 2020
The virus killer: How blockchain contributes to the fight against COVID-19
On Jan. 30, the South China Morning Post reported that one of the largest Asian pharmaceutical companies, Zuellig, had launched a blockchain-based system to track the quality of COVID-19 vaccines. Called “eZTracker,” it allows any user to “instantly verify the provenance and authenticity” of vaccines by scanning the QR code on the package. Somewhat surprisingly, throughout the pandemic, there have not been many reports of blockchain-based products adopted by big pharma or global healthcare organizations to bolster the anti-COVID effort. Here is a rundown of the major cases of such adoption, along with possible reasons for the limited interest in …
Blockchain / Feb. 9, 2022