{"id":59209,"date":"2020-09-02T23:21:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T20:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/college-forces-students-to-download-location-tracking-covid-19-app\/"},"modified":"2020-09-02T23:21:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-02T20:21:00","slug":"college-forces-students-to-download-location-tracking-covid-19-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/college-forces-students-to-download-location-tracking-covid-19-app\/","title":{"rendered":"#College forces students to download location-tracking COVID-19 app"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#College forces students to download<\/a> location-tracking COVID-19 app<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n As colleges make every attempt to control the spread of the coronavirus on campuses across the nation, some are raising privacy concerns about what students see as increasingly invasive tactics.<\/p>\n

Albion College, a tiny liberal arts college in Michigan that shares a name with the town where it\u2019s located, shocked its 1,500 students and their parents by announcing that all attendees would be required to download a location-tracking app called Aura in order to return to campus. Coeds were reportedly notified of the policy only two weeks before their late August arrival \u2014 after tuition was already paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a yes-or-no thing, it was like you have to do this,\u201d Albion senior Grayson Spaw told The Post.<\/p>\n

The app tracks users\u2019 locations at all times, and is synced with their COVID-19 test results. If a student tests positive, the app will notify those on campus whom they have come into close contact with. Those users\u2019 symptoms are then monitored via daily check-ins on the app.<\/p>\n

Aura is part of a wave of new tracking technology<\/a> being developed to combat the spread of the coronavirus, with college campuses essentially acting as open-air labs.<\/p>\n

The company behind Aura says Bucknell and Temple University are in the process of installing its software. The University of Alabama is using an app called Covid Watch, which tracks students\u2019 movements and alerts them if they\u2019ve been near someone who has tested positive, reports the New York Times. There, using the app is optional. A similar program developed by MIT called PathCheck is being piloted at Texas Christian University, Vassar College and Southern Methodist University.<\/p>\n

\"Discovery<\/img>
Discovery Labs is the Pennsylvania-based biotech company behind Aura.<\/span>The Discovery Labs<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At Albion, students are required to fill out a form if they want to leave campus, Spaw said, save for visiting an approved list of vendors in the town of Albion.<\/p>\n

Original reports said that the app would notify the school if students were to leave the campus, prompting disciplinary action. However, a COVID-19 plan provided to The Post from Albion College says that students are allowed to leave campus and that there is no defined perimeter. (An Albion College spokesperson denied an interview request.)<\/p>\n

A freshman, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of punishment from the school, said she was initially denied a chance to work an off-campus job by the college until the company was eventually listed as an approved partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was debating whether I should [take the job] and not go through the school \u2014 I know some students are doing that,\u201d the 18-year-old said, adding that some of her classmates are turning off phones or switching to airplane mode when they leave campus. \u201cHow [does the school] have the authority to deny us any type of job when they\u2019re not paying our tuition?\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the school says it isn\u2019t trapping kids on campus, students say they don\u2019t feel free to move about like they used to. There is a culture of confusion and fear around the app: Students do not know which actions will get them into trouble, and rumors abound.<\/p>\n

The freshman, who has been tested on campus for COVID-19 three times so far, believes the school is keeping the rules vague on purpose: \u201cIf you don\u2019t tell the whole story, people are going to err on the side of caution,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Albion told News<\/a>week that because of the small size of the student population, these measures are necessary to protect the campus community. \u201cRight now, we believe this is the best possible path forward,\u201d Albion College president Mathew Johnson said. \u201cHowever, we will be monitoring the results closely and following medical guidance, shifting our approach on an ongoing basis as needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The college allows students to shop at two grocery stores in a nearby town, although they must do curbside pickup and can\u2019t leave their vehicle, said Spaw, 21.<\/p>\n

Parents were quick to launch a Change.org petition protesting the \u201cprison\u201d-like rules, which now has nearly 2,000 signatures.<\/p>\n

But proponents of the new technology said that personal freedoms aren\u2019t being curtailed in the name of public health.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d said Discovery Labs CEO Brian O\u2019Neill, who runs the Pennsylvania-based biotech company behind Aura. \u201cAll we\u2019re doing is keeping you safe and keeping everyone around you safe so you can enjoy your school life.<\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/img>
Brian O\u2019Neill<\/span>Courtesy Discovery Labs<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNotre Dame had to close [in-person classes], Alabama has 700 cases .\u2009.\u2009. but Albion College is doing business as usual,\u201d O\u2019Neill added.<\/p>\n

He said that the college does not have access to the \u201cGPS snapshots\u201d the app takes every 10 minutes, and that data is deleted every 21 days. Albion College said the app complies with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).<\/p>\n

But within days of launching, student hackers broke into Aura\u2019s database and accessed COVID-19 test results, names, addresses and dates of birth, reported TechCrunch. They posted about their break-in to Twitter<\/a>, alerting angry students that their information was at risk of being compromised.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill called the attack \u201cbrilliant.\u201d \u201cWe fixed the issues immediately,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Albion College students are testing the limits to where they can go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve walked downtown and I don\u2019t think anybody followed me, so I can do that,\u201d Spaw said. \u201cBut if we want to leave campus it\u2019s a bit more of a covert operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI [don\u2019t] really like that feeling of being watched all the time.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

\n

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“#College forces students to download location-tracking COVID-19 app” As colleges make every attempt to control the spread of the coronavirus on campuses across the nation, some are raising privacy concerns about what students see as increasingly invasive tactics. Albion College, a tiny liberal arts college in Michigan that shares a name with the town where…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[63665],"class_list":["post-59209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-college-forces-students-to-download-location-tracking-covid-19-app"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}