So essentially you intend to bypass the purpose of the app. You’ll use it to gain access to places with safety measures in place, where other people going there will feel safer due to an expectation that other users must be compliant, and then you’ll actively take steps to avoid compliance yourself. You are a disgrace.
No. Not a disgrace.
The problem here is the fact that the app will create a false sense of security anyway.
And it will exclude certain people in society for accessing certain things. It amplifies inequality.
To work properly a certain percentage of people need to use it. And there are massive privacy and data issues with it. I do not blame anyone bypassing certain things.
Not to mention the problem is that the most deprived communities are suffering from covid most and are the least able to isolate. Its a financial issue that no one wants to properly confront and deal with.
People who are older (and most at risk of health problems) and more likely to have a phone which doesn't support the app. People who are poor (and most at risk of being infected and also have poorer covid outcomes) and more likely to have a phone which doesn't support the app.
And the fact that there is a MASSIVE exception for under 16s who are not supposed to use the app for legal reasons.
The app only works effectively if a certain percentage of the population have it. It won't achieve that rate because of inequality and a lack of trust in government and apps.
These means people who use it maybe have a false sense of how much it protects them. And might encourage riskier behaviour, these meaning that it ends up not actually solving the problem.
Not to mention the technological limitations of the app and how it won't pick up every contact in certain environments. Cos bluetooth is a little bit shite.
Nor to mention the fact that it produces a 1/3 'false positive' rate for coming into contact with a known case. At which point you are supposed to isolate. And the chances are you won't even have been infected even if you have come into contact with a known case.
Which might be fine if you are walking around in a restuarant. But if it happens to be the hospital canteen, and everyone is being asked to isolate needlessly that could very quickly create its own problems.
The thing is, the app only really works in places where the number of cases is very low, economic inequality is much lower, there is proper economic (and crucially legal) support for isolating whenever is needed (as in multiple times), there is trust in government and big business in terms of data protection and enough people are using it - which has to include under 16s.
If you are using the app under the misguided idea that you are 'safe' if you use it and you can do things you couldn't otherwise because 'they are too high risk' or that its a way to get things 'back to normal' without considering what this actually means and how it actively helps and encourages the exclusion of certain groups and creates a two tier society (hope you are all ok with this).
I deeply resent people saying that other people are 'a disgrace' for using the app when there are a huge amount of moral issues, legal issues and practical problems with the app that no one really wants to have an adult conversation about because they want to believe in how the app is somehow something whiter than white which 'will save the world' in a non-invasive completely innocent and saintly manner with no unintended rather dark side effects. Cos its utter bollocks and just proves the extent to which people don't actually think anymore.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm very much grounded in reality and considering the pros and cons of issues and social problems.
The app is NOT a magic bullet. It has a whole host of ethical and moral minefields which users should be aware of and make an informed decision about.
I am fearful of the implications if we are forced to use it and how much it could marginalise and let us sleepwalk into authoritarism. Which considering how much I have a problem with authoritarism, I will actively protest and sabotage as much as possible because of how that oppresses the most vulnerable and how it allows the exploitation of people.
If that makes people a 'disgrace' then I think that speaks volumes about your authoritarian leanings. And at that point I will just bite my tongue and merely ask others to REALLY think about this app and what it can actually achieve and what the cost of that might be.