Independent Oversight

@Ryan Carrier I want to make sure I understand. Can Independent Oversight be done by a company's board of directors? I think the basic concept of Independent Oversight makes sense, but I want to make sure I see how all the parts of the system will work together.

I think a corporate Board of directors can "own" Independent Oversight, the same way they own their financial audit on behalf of the corporation. I think Better governance and the only solution for combined entities like Google/Apple or Federal or state entities is to have a separate board of oversight since they don't have an independence mechanism other than the ballot box. Then true Independence is achieved. True oversight is achieved if that body has the right to stop or injunct contract tracing if the programs breach an audit rule or law. Did that answer your question?

Yes, it answered the question. What about contact tracing apps that are not made by corporations? How will Independent Oversight work then?

I think that it is even more important to have a body that can represent the people and oversight on government, whether it be Federal, State, or County. Transparency and Accountability are hallmarks of our approach and ought to be hallmarks of a robust contact tracing program

Yes, I agree. Could we make that into another audit rule?

I am not sure that it is an additional audit rule. It might be a clarification of what "Independent" means. Another alternative would be to modify the original proposal to read.. "all contact tracing programs MUST have Independent Oversight who represent the population being traced. But if you follow that logic, then a Board of Directors of a company CANNOT be the independent oversight for a contact tracing programs as they represent shareholders and NOT the population being traced

Looking at the Google/Apple app as an example, I think it's reasonable to expect their tool will get integrated into many apps. Independent Oversight of it would cover MOST of the contact tracing in the United States, would you agree? But Google and Apple definitely do not share a board, and to your earlier point, boards don't represent the interests of the people being traced. So in proposing the Independent Oversight audit rule, are you suggesting that a new Independent Oversight board (similar to the one Facebook announced today) would be created specifically for the Google/Apple app? Or instead would the new group provide oversight of all contact tracing apps that exist?

Yes, I propose that Independent = members of the governance body are unaffiliated with any firm producing the contact tracing technology, or implementing it. If the entity is a government (in many cases), then the governance body should explicitly represent the people and have the transparency and process to interact, hear, and represent the people being traced.

Note that google/apple aren't building an app - they are building a protocol that will be implemented IN apps... Each of those apps will need it's own oversight.

Is it possible to ask/promote the idea of sharing some of the independent oversight responsibility with existing ombudsman roles throughout the US for the particular case of COVID tracking?