We can track your location from your phone, but won’t spy on you, minister reassures SA
The state has gazetted regulations allowing the health department to track who a Covid-19-positive person may have had contact with.
Picture: iStock
Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni Abrahams at a ministerial briefing on Thursday evening in Pretoria explained how government will be using people’s cellphones to track the movements of Covid-19-positive using the geolocation data on their cellphones.
She assured the public that this was being done within the law and in partnership with the department of health. She further said that this measure would not allow government to indiscriminately intercept telephone conversations of citizens.
In effect cellphones will be pinged for tracing purposes to see who was around a Covid-19 infected person.
Ndabeni-Abrahams said this was not a means to spy on anyone; it would ensure a quicker turnaround time for contact tracing.
Local government minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had earlier also weighed in on the issue, saying that cellphone technology would be very helpful.
“When you are in places where you are with strangers, your cellphone will ping off the nearest tower registering all your contacts as well,” she said.
Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams addresses concerns partaining to
new App developed to track Covid-19 patients. pic.twitter.com/yoPHBzHmpQ— VarsityTV SA (@VarsityTVSA) April 2, 2020
Ndabeni-Abrahams further explained that the reason courier services were added to the list of essential services was to support retailers in delivering products, including cellphones, for people who had ordered them online. This would ensure there were fewer people in shops and to minimise the risk.
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