Thoughts on Aura, Contact-Tracing App
Published: 2020-09-14 03:57:09

Hey everyone! Recently techcrunch.com posted an article about a small college in Michigan called Albion College using an app called Aura to track students 24/7 and to give them their COVID-19 test results back. There is no way to opt out of using Aura and every student must have it downloaded. I was worried coming to Penn State this fall that PSU Go or some other app, like Aura, was going to be used to track us. Thankfully neither of those things were true because being tracked 24/7 is very intrusive. Some measures are definitely needed in order to ensure everyone's safety during the COVID-19 epidemic, however being tracked 24/7 is unnecessary and wrong. Students will be punished if they turn off their tracking by being suspended or having their ID cards locked. This feels like a lazy way for the college to ensure safety, while not caring about the rights of the students and stuff. There is a serious lack of privacy and a severe security risk for all students and staff at the college if a hacker gained access to Aura's servers. 

Aura also is only feasible at a small college or university like Albion. An app tracking people 24/7 would be a media disaster at a big university like Penn State. Penn State officials also wouldn't be able to keep up with everyone across every campus with there being tens of thousands of students, instead of 1,500 like at Albion. I think it would be a horrible idea to use this and it is a serious lack of privacy. 

Lack of privacy is the biggest problem with the Aura app. A student a Albion looked into the app to know exactly what it was doing and found lazy coding that allowed anyone to gain access to patient data, including names, addresses, and dates of birth. Regardless of the safety this app brings to the college from COVID-19 the glaring security issues and lack of privacy don't balance out the safety. The balancing act of privacy vs safety is a tough one, but Aura and Albion College does a horrible job with this. In this situation privacy and security of data trumps any type of safety that tracking students 24/7 allegedly gives. If they used a more secure app, then maybe being tracked wouldn't be as bad. However, in this situation I wouldn't want any of my information or my current location at the fingertips of anyone who can access the code. 

A better way to track students, while giving them their privacy would be to track what buildings they go into when they swipe their IDs at the door. This is a more ethical way of solving the issue because people aren't being tracked all the time, but the college can still trace a location for where the student would be exposed to COVID-19. Also, don't have such severe punishments for not using the app. Suspending students and basically locking them out of everywhere on campus is too far for their right to have some privacy. Another important aspect is to create a more secure server to store student data on. The lazy coding and poor firewall protection is the biggest flaw with the app. Albion college should do what other colleges are doing and using their own app to keep track of student data or Aura should rework its information security. 

###More ER Diagrams
As you saw in my post from last Sunday, I made an ER diagram for the COVID-19 outbreak. Today I have made some improvements and also made a physical diagram now instead of only a conceptual one.
####Conceptual Diagram
![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/kjs88q16cynp0cp5fkzf.jpg)

####Physical Diagram
![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/nemdlpzpgyitlx0d5lu3.jpg)

####YouTube Video
{% youtube Oo1Z9LQHOBQ %}