South Carolina’s health department and academic medical center had ambitious plans for a contact-tracking application that could help stem the spread of the coronavirus. But five months after lawmakers intervened with government privacy and data collection concerns, the smartphone’s software is limited to a two-bedroom pilot program at one of the state’s colleges.
Called “SC Safer Together”, the application from Medical University of South Carolina, Clemson University and the Department of Health and Environmental Control of SC is now available for download by anyone. But they were instructed to postpone disclosure until legislators’ privacy concerns can be fully addressed – at least in January.
The application is powered by technology created in partnership with Apple and Google; similar ones are alive in about 20 other states. In South Carolina, 2,000 people downloaded it. Many thousands more would need to use it for it to be effective.
Some in South Carolina are working on the software, which works using anonymous data to let people know if they’ve been close to someone with COVID-19.
DHEC and MUSC reached an agreement on May 1 to create an “electronic contact tracking” application, according to a document signed by MUSC president Dr. David Cole and DHEC’s then director of public health , Dr. Joan Duwve.
The e-mails obtained through the SC Freedom of Information Act show that representatives of Apple and Google worked even before that to present employees of state agencies and political leaders with their plans for tracking contacts and alleviating any concerns that may arise. have on protecting the privacy of southern Carolinians.
In early May, Google experts met with DHEC and MUSC officials about the effort, the emails show.
The company expressed enthusiasm for the progress that the two agencies were already making. At the time, the leaders of the MUSC project were envisioning software that could identify hotspots and outbreaks. Companies may require its use, along with a barcode, to gain access to buildings.
Employers, teachers, store owners, restaurant owners and others could also have been recruited to use it, the researchers thought. The application could then recognize and identify a “high risk event” in which a person was inside a facility where the virus was present.
The facilities themselves, in addition to the people, could be alerted to the risks.
“If successful, the system will not only involve patients and the community (in) the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, but will also help public health and employers and school systems to manage outbreaks and track contacts on their own environments, ”MUSC researchers wrote.
But any hope of launching the app quickly turned out to be short-lived. Most South Carolina residents won’t hear about the app until January, at the very least, and only if lawmakers feel comfortable enough with the app’s privacy protections to fully endorse it.
During a meeting of the Senate committee in June, state senator Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, said he feared that residents would not participate in COVID-19’s contact tracking if they thought their personal data could be stored and shared by the government.
Thus, in drafting the CARES Act legislation this summer, lawmakers explicitly banned DHEC and other state agencies from using cell phone applications for tracking contacts.
Davis convinced his colleagues to keep the rule in place until the General Assembly says otherwise. This effectively shelved the idea for the year, as the session was interrupted by the pandemic.
State Senator Darrell Jackson, D-Hopkins, questioned the delay, noting how difficult it would be to pass a bill allowing a contact-tracking application with only a few days left on the legislative calendar. Therefore, the application was effectively canceled until 2021.
“My concern is urgency,” said Jackson.
But Jackson was alone in expressing that concern.
Later, the Senate backed down, albeit only slightly.
In August, a special Senate coronavirus committee gave MUSC and Clemson University permission to develop the application and deploy it as a pilot program for Clemson students.
The pilot has been live in two dorms for a few weeks and, although it was not released, Clemson and MUSC had to make it available for download in order for the test to work.
So far, 2,000 people have downloaded the app and eight people have submitted the results of a positive test. Because it is built to maintain personal privacy, neither MUSC nor Clemson knows how many downloads have been made to students’ phones.
Despite the pilot’s limitations, universities will need to present their findings to the legislature in January.
Davis said lawmakers feel it is their responsibility to ensure that the government is not dealing with private information from citizens.
He noted that tech giants, including Apple and Google, have a poor track record of “sniffing” user data. Committee leaders prefer to make a broad implementation of the application.
“We wanted a guarantee that it wouldn’t be a Trojan horse,” said Davis. “There is an awareness in South Carolina about individual freedom and rights to privacy.”
Senator Thomas Alexander, the Walhalla Republican who led the coronavirus committee, said lawmakers were comfortable with the fact that the technology is powered by Bluetooth, not GPS.
He defended the legislators’ concerns about the privacy of cell phone contact tracking programs, saying they were in “unknown waters” and did not want to put the personal information of Southern Carolans at risk, by sending it to a centralized database. .
“We didn’t want DHEC and others to go ahead and do something without being properly examined,” said Alexander. “I would see it as another tool in the toolbox that, if appropriate, would be used as we enter the new year.”
Oxford University researchers are also optimistic about the applications’ potential to slow the spread of coronavirus. An analysis published on September 2 found that the Washington state app could reduce infections by 8% and deaths by 6% if 15% of the population signed up. In South Carolina, this translates to about 770,000 people.
This level of acceptance is not occurring in all states that have launched Apple and Google technology. But in Virginia, where the health department claims to have been the first to launch one of the Bluetooth-enabled apps, participation has surpassed the Oxford benchmark.
As of Monday, 826,000 people have downloaded the tool, called COVIDWISE, representing 19 percent of the state’s adult population. It has been available there since August.
Melissa Gordon, a spokeswoman for the department, said the tool made 9,000 notifications of possible exposure to users.
Whether South Carolina residents can be persuaded to download the app is unclear, with some expressing skepticism.
Derik Pack, a resident of Goose Creek with a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering, said he would use it, although he had doubts about how it would work.
“I would like to know how notification decisions are made and how the data would be used later,” he said.
Andrew Kvochick, a Hilton Head resident and software engineer, said he opposed the idea that the government would collect data from people and never download the app.
“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes that we don’t know,” he said. “There is a lot of data available, and I don’t think our government or large corporations can be trusted with any of this.”
The software works by assigning each user a random key. If the user’s phone passes through someone else who also uses the app, the two devices exchange code using Bluetooth features.
If a user’s test is positive, they can choose to send their diagnosis to the app. Then, the people with whom they had close contact will be notified. Participation at all levels is voluntary.
Jackson, Hopkins’ Democratic senator, said in an interview that he remembers thinking that the decision to ban a contact-tracking application could again haunt the state. Now, he is sure that this is what happened, as the state saw another sudden increase in COVID-19 cases.
“I don’t like to just point a finger and say I was right,” said Jackson. “But I think the facts and data confirm that.”
He said he can understand people’s privacy concerns – but not in this case.
“It is something to worry about if we are not in the middle of a pandemic, a global and deadly pandemic,” said Jackson. “In unusual times like these, we have to take greater risks for security. … The prospect of saving lives must overcome any concerns about privacy. “
The Associated Press contributed to this report.