Germany flips to Apple-Google approach on smartphone contact tracing
That governments are taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to effectively &#x27;mandate&#x27; tracking is about as sinister as it gets.  Governments are playing on people&#x27;s fears to overcome privacy concerns that they would otherwise have in normal circumstances; moreover, they&#x27;re making it appear both normal and reasonable to be tracked.<p>I rarely take my phone with me when I&#x27;m out and about and this has been the norm with me for years.  I wonder how long it will be before I&#x27;m stopped in the street by police who&#x27;ll ask me to present my phone for compliance inspection and when I report that I don&#x27;t have it with me then I&#x27;ll be fined.<p>To avoid tracking, some people I know take a different approach which is to turn <i>Airplane Mode</i> on until they actually want to make a call.  I wonder how long it will be before <i>Airplane Mode</i> in phones is disabled by mandate.<p>I can foresee a time in the not-too-distant future when someone who doesn&#x27;t want to own or use a phone will actually be mandated to do so by law.  When that time arrives then we&#x27;ll know that...<p>...<i>&quot;We&#x27;ve won victory over ourselves. We will have learned to love Big Brother.&quot;</i>