--- title: "Is This the World’s Worst Virus-Tracking App?" description: "Moscow's virus-tracking app is extremely unreliable and is handing out thousands of arbitrary fines. Human rights groups called it an intrusion of privacy." date: "2020-06-02" modified: "2020-06-02" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/worst-virus-tracking-app" categories: - "Developments" - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "coronavirus" - "covid19" - "moscow" - "Russia" --- # Is This the World’s Worst Virus-Tracking App? ![Moscow's virus-tracking app is extremely unreliable and is handing out thousands of arbitrary fines. Human rights groups called it an intrusion of privacy.]() *\Image: Kremlin\* To track those who may have caught the coronavirus, the city of Moscow implemented a "Social Monitoring" app. The app is supposed to ensure that residents stay in the safety of their homes by demanding selfies at random intervals. It also tracks their location using GPS. Those who don't upload a selfie proving they're still at home face a fine of about $56 each time, [according to the *Associated Press*](). But the app, which first [launched]() at the beginning of April, isn't working as intended. It's reportedly buggy, crashing frequently and causing many to accumulate hundreds of dollars in fines — a huge sum for the Russian working class. For instance, Moscow resident and nurse Maria Alexeyeva told the *AP* that she had accumulated about $620 in fines as she struggled with the app — all the while fighting off the disease. "That’s more than my monthly wage," Alexeyeva told the *AP*. "This quarantine has been hard on me. And now I have to deal with this on top of it." Thousands of other residents have also struggled with the app. Some were never told it had to be installed. Others accrued fines — even when they hadn't installed it yet. City officials received thousands of complaints and more than 200 lawsuits have been filed, according to the *AP*. Even global NGO Human Rights Watch urged Moscow officials to ditch the app, [citing possible privacy violations](). "Moscow’s social monitoring app could end up discouraging people from seeking out testing or health care, putting them and others at greater risk," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in [a statement](). "The app is intrusive, violates privacy and other rights, and should be dropped," Williamson added. So far, the city has only cancelled 468 fines — because the selfie requests in question were made in the middle of the night. ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()