Review these two stakeholder bios that you saw in the first module:
Afet volunteers with homeless populations, who are particularly vulnerable to developing severe cases of COVID-19. Her work requires her to keep careful track of any potential exposure to the virus. However, Afet has been deeply troubled by stories about companies buying and using people’s personal data for goals she disapproves of, such as building facial-recognition systems from publicly shared photographs. She is concerned about the contact tracing app tracking and storing private data for unknown future purposes.
Olufemi is a doctor at a downtown hospital. An important part of his job is keeping patient details confidential. He would never share private health data with anyone outside the hospital, without the patient’s explicit permission. Recently, however, he’s been working back-to-back shifts in the emergency room, and he knows how close the hospitals are to being overwhelmed. He worries that if the new variants cause a third wave, his hospital will have to start rationing ventilators — choosing which patients to treat and which to let die. Olufemi believes that contract tracing is the only way to keep the number of patients manageable and prevent this catastrophe.
Review the two versions of the contract tracing app that you saw in this week’s activity:
App A prioritizes public health. It uses GPS to track users’ location and travel history. It stores this data permanently, so that it can be used by government agencies for future health research. App A also shares location, travel, and identity information with other government services like the police, to enforce social distancing.
App B prioritizes privacy. It uses Bluetooth to record when two users have come into contact, without collecting any other information about either individual. App B also doesn’t store records for more than two weeks. Since App B doesn’t collect or store location or travel information, that information cannot be used by public health agencies for future research or by police to enforce social distancing.
Decide which version of the contact tracing app you think is best. [You don’t have to use the same version that your group decided on in class.]
Once you’ve picked a version of the app, you’ll need to think about how to justify your choice to both stakeholders (see below for specific instructions).
In your homework, you will answer these two questions for each stakeholder:
Highlight how your chosen version of the app accomplishes some of what the stakeholder wanted.
Explain why your chosen app doesn’t make exactly the tradeoff that the stakeholder was hoping for. (For example Why couldn’t public health/privacy have been prioritized even more? What might the stakeholder have overlooked about the importance of prioritizing privacy protections/public health needs?)
Answer these questions in two separate paragraphs — one paragraph about each stakeholder. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that identifies what version of the app you’re defending and who you’re defending it to (“First, I’ll explain how I’d justify app A to Afet.”) Then in the rest of the paragraph highlight how your chosen version of the app accomplishes some of what that stakeholder wanted and explain why the app doesn’t make exactly the tradeoff they were hoping for. Repeat the same steps in the second paragraph for the other stakeholder (“Now I’ll explain how to justify app A to Olufemi…”)
Grading Note: Students will receive full credit if they a) write two paragraphs with clear topic sentences, b) in each paragraph, match particular features of the app to particular details about the stakeholder, and c) acknowledge that not all of the stakeholder’s desires are being met by this version of the app. You must write at least 250 words.
