NotCliche

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As the H1N1 virus starts to spread around the country at a considerable pace, Japan is coming up with a plan to tackle such an issue.

A few months from now, a highly contagious “virus” will attack a certain Japanese elementary school. A few students will start off the infection, and will infect others as they attend classes and doing their normal routine around the school. If nothing is done to prevent this, it might mean that the “virus” will spread to several other communities and will not be limited to just the school.

However, the Japan government came up with a plan to tackle this situation — by using cellphones.

Of course, the “virus” will be a virtual one, as this is part of the government’s experiment in testing out the reliability of cell phones to limit the spread of a contagious virus. The decision to go ahead with the plan was after Softbank, one of Japan’s largest internet and cellphone company, had proposed to use cellphones to limit the spread of a pandemic.

Cellphones are relatively a huge part of every single Japanese’s lives, so this is actually quite a smart move on the government’s side. Cellphones are usually used for almost everything in Japan, which includes booking of tickets to even buying groceries.

While the exact detail of how the cellphones may be used to tackle the pandemic, a rough idea would be giving about 1,000 students in a particular school with cellphones that are equipped with GPS. This will then track when and where did the student go, thus allowing the officials to determine who has the infected student crossed paths with.

This will then be relayed as messages to the student’s family, enabling them to take prompt action. It is said that this may reduce the amount of such infection cases in Japan.

However, with the implementation of such a technology will mean that there will be some degree of invasion of privacy. Having yourself tracked 24/7 and allowing the government to know where have you been is not exactly the best kind of assurance that you can get. Of course, there are benefits in having this system, but many people rather not have something tracking their movements all the time. It is said though, if such a system is really launched, it’s not compulsory that people should sign up with them if they feel uncomfortable about the system.

It is also commented that this program might just be more effective than using Tamiflu all the time to counter pandemics.

But a the cost of invading people’s privacy? I don’t really think that I want this system in place, at all. However, looking on the bright side, it seems that Japan is really into the whole “giving cellphones for free” thing. I wonder if it’s starting to be a trend.

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