A small liberal arts college in Michigan ordered its students to download a contact tracing app that has had serious privacy breaches.
Albion College told its students that they would be required to use the app Aura, an app that tracks an individual’s location to mark whether they came into contact with other users of the app. The college said the app would be able to help them quickly isolate any students who may have crossed paths if someone tests positive for the coronavirus.
Students were not allowed to opt-out of using the app. Some parents started a petition to ask that the school reverse its policy out of concern for the privacy of students. The petition noted that only students were required to have their locations tracked while professors and other staff were not required to use the app.
“This plan imprisons the students but allows the staff and administration to live their lives accordingly,” the parents wrote in the petition. “As a concerned parent of a student at Albion College, I find all of this extremely invasive. I am all for being a responsible adult by wearing a mask, social distancing, and making wise choices about hygiene per CDC guidelines, but giving up freedoms and privacy is taking this too far.”
The petition also detailed the restrictions placed on students beyond the app. The college forbade students from leaving campus without permission, which prohibited them from making family visits or working off-campus jobs. The petition has garnered more than 1,600 signatures online.
According to Tech Crunch, the Aura app has several security flaws, including one that allowed access into the back-end data that was tracked and an error that allowed hackers to be able to change the coronavirus test results of students. Students need the app to schedule their coronavirus tests if they become ill.
Mathew Johnson, president of Albion College, told students in an email on Tuesday that the university was reviewing the security features on the app. Many students and parents are still concerned about the situation.
“I think it’s more creepy than anything and has caused me a lot of anxiety about going back,” one student said.
