Mobile-only app has costly price: health advocates

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This article was published 23/06/2020 (2112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It may be free but the mobile app the federal government announced last week to notify Canadians they’ve been exposed to COVID-19 may not be available to all Manitobans, anti-poverty and First Nations advocates say.

“Many low-income people survive without a cellphone or if they have a phone, it’s pay as you go, not a smartphone,” said Molly McCracken, Manitoba director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The COVID Shield app uses Bluetooth software to create and share an anonymous identification code from a user’s phone to any phone that also has the app and comes into close proximity for an extended period of time. Phone logs will use anonymized codes, and the app is most effective when as many people as possible have it, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said June 18.

Human rights watchdogs have questioned whether the app violates privacy.

Its makers — Canadian Digital Service, Ontario Digital Service, Blackberry Ltd., and volunteers from Shopify Inc. — as well as Canada’s privacy commissioner, say the app is voluntary and will not share or store personal information, including a user’s location.

Ontario is testing the app, and it is to be available to all Canadians to download for free in the coming weeks.

Others question its use as an app that leaves out those living in poverty.

“We have concerns about people who are highly marginalized in our society and have been left out of a number of COVID responses,” said Leila Sarangi, national co-ordinator of Campaign 2000 to end poverty in Canada.

“Not everybody has a cellphone,” said Toronto-based Sarangi, whose organization is calling for minimum basic income in Canada. Not everyone can access data plans or broadband service for affordability and accessibility reasons, she said.

In Manitoba, that’s a reality, said Sheila North, former grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak and a member of Bunibonibee Cree Nation.

“Once again, people from northern and remote First Nations could be left out of the process, simply by not having the same access as other Canadians in tracking or being notified about the latest on COVID-19, making them even more vulnerable, and potentially harmed further, at no fault of their own,” North said Monday.

“That’s simply not fair and potentially very harmful.”

Infrastructure on First Nations and access for all Indigenous people has to be a top priority, she said. “This pandemic has shown the importance of that.”

Groups such as Make Poverty History Manitoba have for years called on the province to fund phones for those on assistance, said McCracken. At $800 per month for a single adult or $1,033 for a person with a disability, people do not have resources for a cellphone, she said.

“It is a huge barrier for low-income people who face many barriers already,” she said.

“Very little has been done to help those on social assistance get access to information necessary during COVID.”

Providing cellphones and more support such as rent relief, income for healthy food and for cleaning supplies now could save lives and the public health system money down the road, McCracken said.

“A second wave is very possible.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca