Our field of study
Our field of study is computer science and one of our courses this semester is called Technology and Society The course can be described as follows:
«This course will provide a fundamental understanding of our digital world. It gives an overview of how technology affects our lives and the way we work, as well as our social structures, work patterns and individual preferences contributing to shaping technology.»
One of the given obligatory assignments inspired us to talk about the topic of tracking. The Norwegian app Smittestopp came up in discussion. More specifically we started talking about our own experience with this application.
Smittestopp is an app meant to limit the spread of the Corona-virus in Norway. The app uses Bluetooth technology to share “ID-keys” among phones that are near each other. These keys are used to notify users of the app if they have been in contact with a user infected with the Corona-virus(Helsenorge).
There has been some controversy about the app because the first version was launched with a low regard to privacy and security. In an article from NRK, lawyer and expert in privacy Jon Wessel-Aas says “I would not really recommend anyone to use the app as it is now. Unfortunately."
As it turns out most of us still didn’t use the app. We asked ourselves why and it seems, for most of the group members the app still had some negative connotations. We concluded this is probably because of the large amount of critique that the first version of the app received. After public outcry a second version was launched in which these issues were resolved. This second version was even launched with an open-source codebase. Go to article about the new app.
The text is taken from Student (2021) Assignment module 1: The interplay between technology and society [Unpublished obligatory assignment 3, DATA1100], OsloMet