Dive into expert insights, technology trends, innovative concepts, and deep-dive articles curated by Softuvo’s specialists.







Last updated: 12/4/2023
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While some social media networks allow you to schedule your post ahead of time, some do not offer this feature. With social media management tools, you can plot all your content to be posted within the week or month. It also gives you a calendar view of all your scheduled posts, which allows you to monitor your strategies. This feature saves your time and effort in doing it manually. You can use your saved time to focus on other things that are essential to your small business.
Social media networks can give you a glimpse of basic analytics that includes the number of likes, engagement, and follows. With social media management tools, you can have a more in-depth and broader analysis to help you with your campaigns. That gives you the chance to tweak and adjust your efforts based on what your data are telling you.
Hootsuite has a monitoring service that is useful in constantly checking replies, mentions, and even direct messages across your social networks. It also allows collaboration within your team and lets you delegate tasks within the group. Hootsuite can also provide you with useful and customized analytics that can help you with your campaign.
Another top feature of Sprout Social is data analyzation, which makes it a favorite among its users. Analytics is one of the most essential you need to make your social media campaigns successful. Having the right data, you can sort your audience based on their demographics and geographic measure making your campaigns more targeted.
As a social management tool, many favored HubSpot for its ability to link social media networks, making it easy for you to post across several platforms. You can also use this tool to write any content for publication, and with only one click, you can also showcase the message on another platform. That makes it easier for you to create content for you several pages without leaving or switching on your browser windows.
This tool easily connects your social media platforms, making it easier for you to manage your accounts. Using Buffer Extension will give you the analytics feature essential in your social media marketing strategies.
What makes Buffer a crowd favorite is its intuitive drag-and-drop capabilities for your publishing and scheduling needs. You can easily create, adjust, and post seamlessly. By toggling whichever social network you want, you can easily schedule a post. You can also group your social media networks based on the specific position you need.

The current tech age has welcomed the world of digital marketing with open arms. With so much competition out there, it has become difficult for the companies to survive this war of business. In this rat-race, everyone wants to stand ahead of the other, but not every plan is a success.
The online market is vast and creating an impression on the audiences in this arena is daunting. Every day we hear news about Google updates, change in algorithms, new tools launched, and more. This fuss has made us nothing but strangled in our own thoughts. So, the question is how to stand out? Well, if you want to make a solid business foundation, then relying on the ordinary is no more an option, think out-of-the-box.
In this blog, we are highlighting one of the biggest SEO tools - SEMrush. Most of you must be aware of this outstanding tool, freshers should brush up their SEO skills. If you are planning to upgrade your business game, then SEMrush is a must-have tool in your list.
SEMrush is a magical SEO tool that gives deeper insights into your website - identifies your competitors, does keyword research, gives you backlink analysis, analyzes content, and more. There is a lot you can explore this tool and put it to use. This tool has been trusted by top business giants like - Amazon, Hewlett Packard, eBay, and Disney.
SEMrush offers several features that can make your SEO game super strong. Here, we are highlighting the top ones. Check out the details.

Start with the Organic Research tool on the SEMrush dashboard. Here we can find organic keyword trends, position changes, competitors, and sub-domains. You can analyze the keywords and make the most of it.

Another thing to do for keyword research is to use the Keyword Magic Tool. This tool on SEMrush helps to develop a list of keywords. All you need to do is to start typing a keyword on the Search tab and search. You will find a detailed table on the topic-specific breakdown of the keyword. What’s great about this tool is it gives you a comprehensive research of the keyword, which makes it easy for you to make the most of it.

The tool allows you to track daily website rankings based on the keywords you select. You can do an additional setting by targeting a specific device or location. You can surf as many keywords as you want and get a detailed analysis of each.
All those who are struggling with the content ideas, this tool is for you. With the help of Topic Research, you can find ample topics to write on. Simply put a topic on the search bar and it will generate sub-topic categories. You can easily make an analysis and find the best one.

We all know how SEO revolves around the content, but if you don’t have a functional site, then what’s the point of content? The site audit tool comes with over 120 SEO checks that ensure you do not miss any loopholes. You can check issues of duplicate content, broken links, optimization issues, and more. Also, it helps to monitor the website’s health.

Link building is a huge aspect of SEO and it plays an important role. But, it is often neglected sometimes. What’s great about using SEMrush's link building tool is it allows for creating link building opportunities based on the keywords.

Speaking of Brand Monitoring Tool of SEMrush that also comes with effective link building techniques that allow the users to track the brand mentions on the web. Trust me, these mentions are a great way to obtain the links. With this tool, you can easily gain do-follow, non-toxic, and more. Try and explore this one!

All links aren’t good from SEO point-of-view. Quantity and quality both matter when it comes to links. Using the Backlink audit tool, you can easily avoid Google penalties from toxic backlinks. All you need to do is audit the links you want, analyze the toxic score, and send emails to the websites. You can audit as many links as you want and get rid of the toxic links in one go. This is what you need to protect your website from getting trapped by the spammy links.

We all are familiar with how content can change your SEO game. But, it's not only about what you are posting, but it is also quality as well as the quantity. What we usually do is we keep on writing and writing blogs, without realizing that they are doing no good for us in SEO terms.
Here comes the Content Analyzer Tool that helps you analyze how your content is performing on your site. Not just that, the tool also measures the keyword rankings, backlinks, Google Analytics data, and more. Doesn’t it sound like all we wanted to make our content a hit? Well, it certainly is.

Social media is no more an option for businesses today, almost every business is struggling in diving in this area. With so much competition online, it gets difficult to build a strong social network. Thanks to Social Media Tool, you can actually create winning social media strategies. The tool gives you a detailed analysis of how the users are responding to the content you are posting on different social media channels. Not just that, you can also see how your competitor is performing on the social media channels and how effective their platform is.

Another amazing tool is Report Generation. This tool makes it easy to organize important information in one place. You can make use of simple and easy-to-use drag and drop widgets to make a report and maintain your records.
In this blog, I have highlighted one of the most famous SEO tools, SEMrush, and how it can be beneficial for your business. I have tried to cover most of the SEMrush’s tools, but there is so much more to this. If you want to crush your competition in the online world, then make the most of this tool.

Traffic Analytics makes estimations on the basis of clickstream data about the domain’s sources of traffic. This is not just restricted from search. Domain Analytics, on the other hand, is only based on the keyword position and their estimated traffic. Basically, you get different estimations of traffic from both these tools.
Keyword Gap tools help you get a side-by-side comparison between different keyword profiles. You can choose up to 5 competitors at a time.
The visibility metrics show how often your website is found on the web. This helps you get an estimate of website visibility trends for a particular set of keywords. Try and explore, it is helpful!
SEMrush tool is one of the best SEO tools, helping several digital marketers since 2009. As you know every website is different and has its own needs. SEMrush offers an extended range of tools that help to meet the unique website’s needs. With the constant monitoring of your SEO strategies and competitor analysis, you can definitely improve your website rankings.

We all love to see our website rank at the top of search engines, don’t we? But, not all websites rank top! To make a website rank it is important for the site to crawl and index on the search engine. So, what exactly to do if your website has crawl errors? Several questions might be crossing your minds right now? Don’t worry! We will guide you in detail! Let’s get started with the basics!
The crawl errors are witnessed when the search engines cannot access your web pages. What they do is they restrict the search engines from reading the content and index your pages.
Broadly crawl errors are categorized into two types:
Google Search Console is an efficient tool that covers everything that you need to check your website. It helps to monitor, fix the errors, and analyze how well the website is performing. In this tool, you can also get a crawl report that finds errors along with a brief explanation for each one.
In the Google Search Console, the crawl errors are divided into two broad categories namely - Site Errors and Crawl Errors. Now, there are several errors included in each one of them.
The Google Search Console dashboard looks like this image below. Here, you can find an option to find the crawl errors, sitemaps, URL parameters, International targeting, messages, and more. You can also get detailed reports on different types of errors and analyze how they are affecting your website growth.
Now, let’s dig in the detail of crawl errors!
The site errors show the errors of the website as a whole. This means that Google is unable to access any of the site’s pages.
Now, there are three types of site errors.
Domain Name System error implies a major website issue that does not allow Google to connect with your domain. This may be due to a DNS timeout issue or DNS lookup issue.
Although the DNS error allows you to connect with your website they are still a red flag for your site overall. In case you witness this issue, you should react immediately.
This error simply means that Google cannot find robots.txt file, located in the main domain. One thing that I would like to highlight here is that you need robots.txt file only if you don’t want the search engines to crawl certain pages. Although, it is not an important issue to consider, fixing this one is vital. For example- when you update content regularly on the site if the Googlebot cannot load the robots.txt file, then it will not show any crawling on the search engines.
Server error means when the server takes too long to respond and the request usually times out. These errors may happen when the website is getting too much traffic and it gets difficult for the server to handle it. This is a severe type of error and requires immediate action otherwise, it may harm the site overall.
As already mentioned, these are different from the site errors as they affect only the specific pages and not the whole website. There are times when a site may face multiple URL errors, but there is nothing to freak out. These can easily be resolved! Check out how.
The soft errors mean when the page doesn’t return to the HTTP 404 response code when requested by the user. Usually, the non-existent pages return the users to irrelevant pages. Now, the question is are they important errors? Well, if the soft 404 errors are not the critical pages, then you can skip fixing them.
This error implies when Google tried to crawl a page, but it doesn’t exist on your site. According to Google, 404 errors don’t affect the website’s rankings, so you can ignore them if you want to. These are only important if 404 error is being displayed on the important web pages.
As the name suggests, this type of error doesn’t allow Google to crawl the page. This means that it requires immediate action. You can ignore this only if you don’t want the particular page to crawl.
Don't miss reading our detailed guide
While the world of SEO may seem quite fascinating to many but technicalities sound boring. In this blog, I have tried to cover some of the most common errors on Google Search Console and how we can fix them in a quick and easy way. In case, you are facing these errors, try the hacks now.
One thing to keep in mind is that it is imperative to regularly check these errors as it may affect your website’s rankings. Feel free to share your thoughts below, we would love to help you!

We always talk about marketing techniques, but what we miss is the content part. Content plays a crucial role in delivering your message to the target audiences. With the help of Content Marketing, you can actually trigger the buyer’s emotion and change their buying patterns.
In this blog, we will learn how you can make your content marketing strategy strong and enhance your brand’s visibility. Let’s know the details.

Content Marketing is an innovative marketing technique that focusses on creating relevant, valuable, and consistent content to attract the target audiences with the main aim to drive profitable customer actions.



What is the purpose of your content marketing strategy? What do you want to achieve? Every business is set with a different goal, so identify your goals before you frame the marketing strategy. It will help you move in the right direction.
Defining your audience is really important when you begin creating the content strategy. For this, you can collect the demographics data, create the buyer’s persona, and get customer feedback. By collecting this data, you can easily identify who your audience is what preferences they have.
Once you know who your audience is, the next step is to evaluate what you will post. Well, there is no one size fit all model when it comes to content. There are different types of content types from blogs to infographics, e-books, articles, video content, podcasts, and more.
So, you have framed the content, but have you decided when to post? It is really important to decide at what time you should post the content. Over-stuffing the content post won’t increase your brand engagement, it will affect the rankings. Make a content calendar and plan your posts, so they provide lucrative results.
To get conversions, it is important to focus on the CTAs (Call-to-actions). While posting the content in the web world, it is essential to redirect your audiences to your business website or contact page. Doing this will help increase conversions.
Once your content is published, the next step is to promote the content. Choose the platforms to promote the content and boost your SEO rankings. If you are not getting any positive results, then you can even opt for paid channels to promote the content.
No marketing will work if you don’t track the results. It is really important to keep a check on the content you are posting online. Analyze the post-performance and refine the content if needed. This will keep a smooth flow of content.

Content is the King of the online world. Quality content can take your business to the next level. With the right strategy and approach, you can flourish your business to greater heights. The moment you know your audience and have crafted the content marketing plan, your half battle is done. The rest lies in your marketing technique.

Content marketing strategy is the management of content that you have framed. The strategy may vary depending on a lot of factors including - company size, industry, type of audiences, and even budget.
The user intent is the motive of the user when they raise a query by typing on the search engine to find an answer. While framing the content, it is really important to understand user intent.
High-quality content is the one that informs and engages the user. In Google’s term, High-Quality content is the representation of the E-A-T model i.e. Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Content marketing helps to understand the user persona, inform them, advise, and help in all stages of the buyer’s journey. The flow of content marketing works in a seamless way, it will first aware buyer, develops the interest, helps to make a decision, and finally urge them to buy the product or get the service.

Do you believe that the first impression is the last? While this phrase might be wrong in the usual life, it’s not in the web world. Yes, I am talking about website designs here! The first thing we notice on a website is the way it looks. Yes, web design matters a lot! If a website is not responsive and beautifully structured the user is likely to drop off the site. That is how big an impact the website UI/UX can have on the users. There has been a lot of evolution in the field of web designing over the past few years and if you want to leave a lasting impression on your audiences, then you have to stay updated with the changes.

So, what’s popping in your mind? You must be wondering, how to create a mind-boggling website design. Well, you need to work on the UX/UI! This blog is all about ways to nourish your UX/UI skills and how to leave a positive impact on your users. Let’s begin with the details.

Wish to impress your target audiences? You can do it with a stunning UX/UI. Customers like when the brand tells their story in an unusual and creative way people always appreciate. So, when you create out-of-the-box web designs, customers are likely to get more attracted to your brand.
A website that looks well, navigates smoothly and embedded properly always enhances the user experience. It has been observed that users are likely to stick more on a website if it offers a seamless user experience. Not just that, it will also help in increasing conversion rates. So, it’s definitely a win-win for your business!
When you invest in a great UX/UI, the customer will believe in your brand. Whether you are creating UX/UI of a website or an app, you need to keep things in sync from the beginning. Good web design ensures that there will be no or minimal rework. So, it ultimately saves not just the time but also the money that is spent on tools.
Well, apart from these, there are several reasons why you should be focussing on web designing, and investing in the right web strategy will help you gain more website/app credibility.

There is no magic formula to build a stunning web design. However, there are a few things that can actually make a big difference. Excited to know the details? Keep reading!
No matter what design you make, if it has no impact on your audience, then it’s of no use. So, to begin with, you need to understand the demand of your audiences and see what they are looking for. The best way to do so is to ask yourself a few questions. For instance, when you visit an eCommerce website, what is the first thing you expect in a design, analyze those questions, and design smartly.
Over highlighting designs and big texts is a big no-no for any website. This era is about a simple and plain website. The more simple and easy navigation the website offers, the better the user experience it will provide to the users. For example - there should be a proper flow of design, easy navigation, and no extra content. Doing this will definitely work wonders for you!
Trust me, this point is really really important. There is so much being done in the world of web design and keeping an eye on each upcoming trend is important for the designer. You need to know what’s trending and how it can be beneficial for a website. Once, you know the details, you can actually provide a better user interface and user experience to the users.
It takes lots of time and innovation to create a web design and just a few moments to reject the same. Well, web designing is challenging and sometimes, it is really tough to match up to the client’s expectations. Relax, just be open to trying new things and explore. Spend more time in creating new sample designs to polish your skills. This will help you become more confident in your field and better in the future. Stay positive!

As already mentioned, there is no sure shot way to become the top web designer, but one thing is sure that what’s different always wins the game. Creativity and innovation are the key ingredients of web designing, so you need to keep brushing up your ideas. However, if you can’t find any positive progress, then you can give these tips. I Hope, these work wonders for your profession.

Many people are confused between the concept of UX/UI. User Interface or UI’s main objective is to add attractive elements to the app/website. The whole idea is to provide an enjoyable, easy, and interactive interface to connect the user with the brand.
UX or User Experience, on the other hand, is evolved as a result of UI. When the users have something to interact with the brand, then it is likely to enhance their user experience. The main focus of user experience is to provide a seamless experience when using an app or website.
At Softuvo, we follow agile methodology and dig deep into a project. We begin by researching and analyzing your business requirements and market trends. After that, we create a plan of action that includes everything from to end. We give our clients the topmost priority, so when we create designs, we first get it approved and then love further with the implementation. We welcome feedback happily and make changes if necessary.
DLS is a collection of functional elements like - header, label, forum, layout, and more. A good design language system helps to create harmony and consistency for all the platforms.

Do you that there are around 20 billion connected devices that add to the revenue? Yes, that’s true! A decade back, we were unaware of the concept of IoT, but things are quite different now. The connected world of today has changed the pace of our lives to a great extent.
In this infographic blog, we will read all about the Internet of Things (IoT) and how it is affecting our surroundings.


IoT enables us to wirelessly connect ‘things’ with the Internet. Technology has changed the way we work, travel, live, and do business. IoT is the system of interconnected devices that have the ability to collect and transfer data without any human-to-machine interaction.
Data is gathered by the sensors and is then analyzed in real-time. Doing this allows rapid response in times of a sudden change.
Processing is done to collect the data from multiple devices and transform it use by cloud-based analytic platforms.
It is important to ensure that IoT devices communicate efficiently, provisioned securely, and updated from time-to-time to maintain a seamless connection.
With the help of IoT data, you get a clear insight into creating new revenue models and new products.
After receiving the insights, the data needs to be delivered to the enterprise systems and receive reference metadata to interpret device data.

IoT technology is not just limited to our phones and home devices but also in several business industries.
Healthcare - There is now electronic recordkeeping, portable health monitoring, and pharmaceutical safeguards.
Retail - With IoT technology, you can now do smartphone shopping, inventory tracking, anonymous analytics of consumer behavior.
Business/Manufacturing - Neary 40% of businesses are using IoT for robotic machinery and real-time analytics of supply chains.
Security - Facial recognition, biometric, and remote sensors are some of the best examples of the technology.

It is hard to resist the charm of Smart home devices. The popularity of home automation and home security will rise in 2020.
The application of IoT in healthcare is expected to reach $72,000 million by 2021. Intelligent health monitoring devices, sensors, medical equipment, and mobile applications will surge.
The integration of IoT in cities will help to decrease traffic congestion, unlock sustainable development, and enhance security.
With the help of smart beacon techniques and sensors will help to provide a more personalized experience to the users.
IoT technology has no stopping in the near future.
The technology has never failed to impress. With IoT the future of businesses is bright and it will get better for the good. New technologies will emerge making IoT more efficient and intuitive.
“As the Internet of things advances, the very notion of a clear dividing line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred, sometimes in creative ways.” – Geoff Mulgan

AI is used to interpret the data to receive by the IoT source. This helps the device understand better and provide users with enhanced user experience.
Cloud, sensors, networks, and things are the major components of IoT. In simple words, the sensors are attached to the thing (object of interest or machine). The sensors further help to collect and monitor the data. The data is then over to the network and give responses.
IoT is useful in many ways. From reducing the manufacturing defects to monitoring health, saving power use, and more there is a lot that IoT can do.
Phillips Hue for lighting control, Fitbit wearable, Voice assistants like Google Chromecast to make your TV smart, Amazon Echo, Samsung Home Monitoring Kit for house automation, Nest Learning Thermostat, and more.

Are you struggling hard in finding the right marketing strategy? Try Email Marketing! The broad scope of email marketing is sure to provide your business with great benefits. In this blog, we have covered details on how to create effective email marketing. Read on to know details!
Emails Never Go Out Of Style
Email Marketing is one of the oldest yet most effective means of connecting with the leads. More than 88% of businesses are using emails to get attention from the prospects. Emails are a great way to build a brand-customer relationship and increase sales.

With more than 3.8 billion email users worldwide, emails are the perfect way to reach prospects.
Emails are a great way to nurture leads and drive conversions.
There is no one particular entity controlling the emails, it is an open-source platform where anyone can send and receive the emails.
Emails are considered as a cost-effective means of marketing and significantly increases the ROI.

The first step is to determine what you expect from the email campaign. Analyze what is your focus - increase brand’s visibility, build more relationships, increase sales, increase website traffic, or simply promote the business? Once you have your answer hop on to the next step.
It is really important for businesses to analyze who they are targeting. Who are your current customers, whom you are likely to target, what are their core problems, and what solutions you have for them? Answer these questions before you make the email list.
Send emails to people who are not interested in opening your emails is a big no-no! Once you have identified your target audience, it is time to curate an email list. The only thing that will work for your business is sending the right messages to the right audiences.
Segmentation can go a long way for your business. All you need to do is to categorize the individuals based on characteristics, behavior, buying frequency, and even gender. Doing this helps to tailor your messages and reach out to the target audiences efficiently.
The first thing users notice in the mails is the subject line. And, if that’s not catchy, the user is likely to skip reading your email. The subject line should not only catch the user’s attention but urge them to open the mail. Although there is no sure shot way to make the subject lines, it is best to keep it short and simple.
Creating attractive subject lines won’t work alone until you post the content that matches the tone of the subject line. Make sure you stay true to your brand’s original message and add call-to-action. In addition, you need to ensure that the email is being delivered at the right time.
A structured and alluring layout always attracts, right? Using stunning colors, frames, animations, and the content will definitely be a win-win for your business. Make your emails as personalized as you can to match the brand’s tone.
Most people check their emails on mobile phones and if you are not optimizing the mails with the mobile devices then you are likely to miss a large segment of audiences. The design, content, CTAs, and images all should be fully-optimized as per the device size.

Mailchimp is a popular email marketing platform. It offers an intuitive interface that allows up to 2,000 subscribers for free. You can access more powerful features like - auto responding by going for the paid version.
The best part of using Sendinblue is that it not only helps in email marketing but also in SMS marketing. So, basically, you get the benefit of two things at once. You can segment users, craft highly-engaging mails, and building automated workflows, there is a lot in the platter for you.
Drip is a smart marketing automation tool that can seamlessly integrate complex workflows and statements within the emails. This email marketing tool is ideal for those who have multiple products to sell and want to create complex marketing sequences.
The future of email marketing is inevitable. It’s time to dive into the world of email marketing and make the most of it. Personalization, AI, and Automation will make a big difference in email marketing and make it worth each money spent. Emails were and will be the hottest marketing trends, so investing in these will make a huge difference.

Email Marketing should be done with proper research. Before you start with this type of marketing, you need to frame a strategy of email marketing. Who your target audience is, what exactly you want to coney using the emails, and what is the purpose. Doing this will help you do email marketing in an efficient way.
A big yes! Email marketing is one of the most traditional ways of marketing and is still prevailing. From startups to well-established companies like - Amazon, Flipkart, and more everyone use email marketing. The investment is less and revenue is outstanding. Worth trying!
Well, it depends on you. For example - if you have valuable data to post on emails, then there is no harm to sending emails every day. It is really important to stay in touch with your audiences, otherwise, they will lose interest. So, just make sure you stay connected and keep sending emails from time-to-time.
To track the success of your email campaigns, you need to keep a check on the - conversion rate, bounce rate, and click-through rate. It will help you to analyze how your emails are responding and what needs to be changed.

Lockdowns in various nations due to the coronavirus pandemic are gradually being relaxed by governments across the world. However, efforts to reduce the spread of the virus are being intensified. One of the methods being used to curb the spread of the virus is contact tracing, which is the act of identifying those exposed to COVID-19 positive individuals.
Contact tracing has gone digital as tech companies are increasingly liaising with health workers to create contact tracing smartphone apps. These mobile applications work using Bluetooth signals called ‘chirps’. These chirps are picked up by nearby smartphones and are uploaded to a public database if a smartphone tests positive for the virus.
Once this happens, everyone in close contact with the infected individual receives a notification about possible exposure to the virus. Digital contact tracing, however, poses serious privacy concerns to individuals. A recent ExpressVPN survey has revealed that more than 7 in 10 Americans are concerned about privacy breaches via contact tracing applications.
There are several doubts about these contact tracing applications speeding up the end to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s the reason why public health officials in the U.S. are rejecting the tech approach for a manual one. Health officials are advocating for the hiring of manual contact tracers.
Contact tracing is highly beneficial to the prevention of the further spread of a virus. It proves to be more efficient when tests can be carried out swiftly on a population with low infection rates. The U.S. has a relatively high rate of infection and a snail-like level of testing.
The very idea of using contact tracing application started from countries in Asia like China, Singapore, and South Korea. These governments stretched privacy rights boundaries by performing mass surveillance. China, for instance, utilized these contact tracing apps to curb the movement of its citizens. The contact tracing app idea that facilitated mass infringement on privacy rights is now set to be adopted by the U.S.
Using contact tracing apps to stamp out COVID-19 sounds like a wonderful idea. However, there is still no proof that contact tracing apps will perform any better than manual contact tracing.
Apple, in conjunction with Google, has proposed an application programming interface (API) for smartphone contact tracing. The API will serve users by alerting individuals who have been in close proximity with people that have tested positive to COVID-19. Both companies are not developing an application, freeing them of possible operational questions associated with the release of an app.
Many experts across tech and health have sounded reasons why contact tracing applications cannot work perfectly for the prevention of the coronavirus spread. For one, there’s the issue of false positives (reports of non-existent exposure). What if sensors pick up signals through surfaces like walls without real risk of exposure to the uninfected individual?
There’s also the issue of false negatives (people not being alerted after possible exposure). People sometimes leave their phones at home before venturing outside. Besides, not everyone in the U.S. uses smartphones (81% of Americans use smartphones). How then, will alerts be sent to those without the contact tracing app and individuals without smartphones?
Older people, who are at the highest risk of becoming casualties to the virus, are unlikely to download the contact tracing app.
Several individuals believe the tech approach proposed by the government will be used to breach privacy rights and provide a false sense of security to the population. This kind of situation could even lead to a potential fresh breakout because the government in a bid to assure citizens of quick eradication of the virus, might revive businesses sooner than required.
Negative possibilities that could arise from the use of contact tracing apps are endless. Politicians could release false reports of COVID-19 incidences in the district they’re unlikely to win in. Internet trolls and hackers could decide to release hijacked information just for the fun of it.
National security could be compromised by foreign forces through a false report of coronavirus outbreaks in cities. There are also discriminatory tendencies that could arise such as employers requiring workers to display results on the tracing app before allowing them into workspaces. Several adverse situations could arise from the utilization of contact tracing applications.
One of the first contact tracing apps used in North and South Dakota, Care 19, has been found to go against its privacy policy. The application sends out user data such as location and other sensitive personal information to third-party firms. Care19, which is available on App Store – which by the way, is supposed to thoroughly scrutinize the app for privacy violations- proves Apple lets the app slide through its filters.
Care 19’s privacy policy clearly states location data is ‘private to you and will not be shared with anyone including government entities or third parties’. Research by the privacy software maker, Jumbo, showed that user data was being sent to Foursquare, a well-known location-data supplier for advertisers.
Sensitive information like location and unique user codes (a series of numbers and letters to protect the anonymity of users) were also being sent to the firm. Apple released a statement saying it had begun investigations into the report by Jumbo.
When all is done and dusted, it comes down to trusting the government and technology corporations. Times without number, the government has been found wanting concerning the issue of following their own rules and regulations. Will contact tracing apps be used solely for the elimination of the coronavirus or privacy-breaching purposes such as mass surveillance?
Private information should never have to be at risk of compromise. We have to make certain they never get to the wrong hands. Contact tracing apps are tools that can accelerate the mass privacy breach of citizens. What the world needs right now is a method that jointly preserves our civil liberties and keeps humans safe from the virus.
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