Even decentralized, there always will be a central authority in the system that you will have to trust to not misbehave in the future.
The other issue is that contact tracing (decentralized or not) is exploitable. In Korea, people sometime figured out who is infected or not, and those people are now socially bashed on the internet.
There are many scenarios where contact tracing can be abused : for example, anyone from outside your house can now know if there is someone inside. Handy for thieves.
French academics did set up a nice website with a list of those scenarios, but it's only available in French : https://risques-tracage.fr/
The actual debate is not decentralized/centralized, it's "should we allow contact tracing or ban it?"
> The actual debate is not decentralized/centralized, it's "should we allow contact tracing or ban it?"
Did you mean "digital contact tracing" there? Contact tracing itself is a necessary tool when dealing with a pandemic and I really do not see anybody arguing against that. Of course there's a lot of trade-offs and questions like voluntary/mandatory, usage restrictions, etc. but I feel like decentralized vs. centralized debate was a good first discussion to have in a democracy.
> Contact tracing itself is a necessary tool when dealing with a pandemic and I really do not see anybody arguing against that.
Humanity got right we are today (still alive and growing) without digital contact tracing. So, no, this is not a "necessary" tool.
I wish the link I posted above was available in English too, because they analyzed a few scenario that shows how digital contact tracing can be exploited by anyone, not just techies people.
I would rather be a partisan of investing our money in technologies that heal and strengthen our bodies. At least regenerating and healing the body could help with many other diseases.
The other issue is that contact tracing (decentralized or not) is exploitable. In Korea, people sometime figured out who is infected or not, and those people are now socially bashed on the internet.
There are many scenarios where contact tracing can be abused : for example, anyone from outside your house can now know if there is someone inside. Handy for thieves.
French academics did set up a nice website with a list of those scenarios, but it's only available in French : https://risques-tracage.fr/
The actual debate is not decentralized/centralized, it's "should we allow contact tracing or ban it?"