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Content type: Examples
TrustNet Pakistan, the country’s only digital trust foundation, has begun work alongside many other global technology companies on a digital vaccination verification platform called CovidCreds. The initiative supports projects that use privacy-preserving verifiable credentials. TrustNet is working on a solution called Vaccify to provide verification that it’s safe for people to travel out of Pakistan. The system is expected to work via a mobile phone app that can digitally receive test results…
Content type: Examples
A detailed analysis of Pakistan’s app, which was developed by the Ministry of IT and Telecom and the National Information Technology Board and which offers dashboards for each province and state, self-assessment tools, and popup hygiene reminders, finds a number of security issues. Among them: the app uses hard-coded credentials, which it sends insecurely, to communicate with the government server, and it downloads the exact coordinates of infected people in order to provide a map of their…
Content type: Video
The incorporation of new technologies to electoral processes is a phenomenon with a global and exponential growth. Despite its benefits, online campaigning is not without challenges, and can pose threats to transparency and equity in electoral competition. Given the role of elections as foundational pillars of the democratic system and a key gateway for the exercise of fundamental civil rights, these implications must be assessed with care and through specific tools.
We at PI, together…
Content type: Examples
The lack of data protection laws and the absence of a privacy commission are contributing factors to Pakistan’s failure to investigate or remedy security flaws in the country’s recently-launched COVID-19 tracking technology, which partially depends on a system originally developed to combat terrorism. While there are no reported cases of harassment or targeting based on the leak online of the personal details of thousands of COVID-19 volunteers, the lack of response fails to boost citizens’…
Content type: Examples
As the first confirmed coronavirus case in Pakistan, Yahyah Jaffery became a pariah after his identity, photograph, and home address were leaked on social media. Similar leaks about dozens of other patients and medical staff followed. The contact tracing system being used for coronavirus was originally developed by the country's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) to combat terrorism; it is based on a new data hub in Islamabad that will collect information from the ISI tracking system and share…
Content type: Examples
Our partners from Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan wrote a piece analysing cases of privacy violations, misinformation, hate speech and other cases. As they said, the situation with regards to the Coronavirus is still developing in the country and Digital Rights Foundation, are keeping an eye out for the developments regarding the disease and also assessing how the digital rights sphere is being affected.
Link: https://digitalrightsfoundation.pk/protecting-your-digital-rights-during-the-…
Content type: Examples
The Pakistani government has repurposed a system designed by the country's spy agency, inter-Services Intelligence for tracking down terrorists to trace suspected COVID-19 cases. Prime minister Imran Khan has said that efficient tracking and testing of coronavirus-infected people is the only way to reopen the country's closed businesses.
Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/pakistan-government-isi-system-track-suspected-covid-19-cases-pm-imran-khan-1670378-2020-04-24
Writer: Press…
Content type: Examples
An Excel file containing complete data pertaining to patients tested for coronavirus in the cities Quetta and Taftan in the the Balochistan region of Pakistan has been circulating in WhatsApp groups about Balochistan. The file contains information such as names, phone numbers, age address and other identifying information for the patients. The leaked data puts the patients at risk of personal harm and social stigma, even after recovery. Balochistan government officials say the data leaked…
Content type: Examples
An official directive from the Pakistani provincial government of Sindh titled "COVID-19 Mobile Registration System for Needy People" describes its use of multiple databases to identify those in need of welfare funds and disburse cash to them by combining taxpayers' data from the Federal Board of Revenue, travel histories from the Federal Investigation Agency, and financial information from the State Bank of Pakistan. Recipients need to create cellphone accounts via the service provider Jazz in…
Content type: Examples
Mobile phone users in Pakistan have discovered that the government is accessing, without consent, their mobile phone location and call records despite legal questions about whether doing so violates the country's constitution. After users reported that patients testing positive for COVID-19 returned home, the government sent SMS "Karuna Alert" messages to some of their friends, family, and neighbours; the Pakistan Telecom Authority confirmed it had sent the messages using patients' registered…
Content type: Examples
The former Big Brother reality TV star Matías Schrank was arrested by the Cybercrime division of the Misiones provincial police, after publishing tweets that claimed that Eduardo Rovira, the president of the Misiones legislature, had contracted COVID-19 on his recent trip to Thailand and was reckless in not immediately going into quarantine but continuing to hold meetings with other high-level government officials. Schrank was charged under Article. 211 of the Criminal Code, which…
Content type: Examples
The Argentinian company Urbetrack is developing a "Cuidate en casa" (Take Care of Yourself at Home) app that it will pitch to government agencies throughout the country. The goal is to contribute to remediating the health crisis by helping enforce quarantine. The plan is that users will download the app and complete a form with their personal details as chosen by the local authority. The app will then generate a "radial geofence" defined by the local authority, within which the user must stay.…
Content type: Examples
The Argentinian Ministry of Transport, working with the state-owned satellite company ARSAT and the telecoms regulator,ENACOM, proposed to the Executive on 31 March 2020 a platform that uses cell tower data to track people on public transport and ensure they comply with quarantine laws. By 28 March, the Ministry of Security had detained 13,006 people for violating the rules. The government believes that although compliance is high, it will deteriorate if quarantine is extended much longer…
Content type: Examples
The San Francisco-based big data company Grandata has created a heat map to show which areas of Argentina are best complying with the quarantine lockdown. Grandata used an "anonymised" dataset collected from apps that provide third parties with geolocation information. The heat map shows if an individual has moved more than 100 meters from the place where they spend most of their time, apparently without taking into account the socio-economic contexts of different cities, where individuals…
Content type: Examples
Argentina's Public Prosecutor's Office will start installing an app on the smartphones of those who violate government-ordered quarantine in the cities of Santa Fé and Rosario. The app will be installed by the province's Criminal Investigation Agency to track those who are under criminal investigation for violating quarantine. The app will send reports to the the MPA investigation office and coordinated by the Attorney General's Office. Individuals will be required to sign a document…
Content type: Examples
On March 23, Argentina's immigration agency, Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (DNM), announced that anyone arriving in the country would be required to install the free COVID-19 Ministry of Health app on their phone for 14 days to ensure they comply with quarantine rules in order to protect the population. The Office of the Chief of Staff had instructed the DNM to adopt this policy when it launched the app, also on March 23. Since launch, the number of unnecessary permissions the app requests…
Content type: Examples
After Pakistani residents queried whether messages labelled "CoronaALERT" sent out via SMS were legitimate, telecom authorities confirmed that it was authentic, being sent to selected individuals at the request of the Ministry of Health under the Digital Parkistan programme. Individuals were chosen because they might have come in contact with infected individuals during travel or in specific locations. It is not clear, however, what the criteria were for selecting individuals at risk,…
Content type: Examples
The self-testing web app issued by Argentina's Secretariat of Public Innovation asks for national ID number, email and phone as mandatory fields in order to submit the test. The Android version requires numerous permissions: calendar, contacts, geolocation data (both network-based and GPS), microphone, camera, full network access; change audio settings, run at startup; draw over other apps, prevent device from sleeping.
Sources:
https://www.argentina.gob.ar/coronavirus/app
https://play.…
Content type: Examples
The free app Testeate, developed by the company Adrómeda in collaboration with the Association of Information and Communication Technologies of Mar del Plata (ATICMA) and the Chamber of Software and Computer Services Companies of Argentina (CESSI) and launched in the Municipality of General Pueyrredón on March 26, is intended to enable direct information exchange between Argentina's National Ministry of Health and the population by offering constantly updated information in any city and…
Content type: Examples
A group of independent developers in Argentina started CoTrack, a public crowdsourced effort to develop an app to track and slow the spread of the virus. CoTrack registers each user's geographic movements and looks for times when they are close to people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19. When there is a confirmed case, a user who has the app can share their data with the community so others can automatically be notified that they should take precautions. The Ministry of Health for the area…
Content type: Examples
An Argentinian crowdsourcing website is collecting information on flights with passengers who were reported as testing positive for COVID-19. Users are asked to enter their email address and the date, airline, and flight number, and tick a box to indicate that someone on their flight was infected. No information is provided on who operates the site, but the terms and conditions indicate that it uses open data flows alongside the collected data.
Source: http://www.checkmyvirusrisk.com/CO/…