This is a Twitter Thread turned blog post

This may be interesting for native english speakers, especially those working in international environments. For my Luxemburgish/German readers this may be interesting to know as well.

Among the many things I dislike about languages with Germanic roots (like Luxemburgish) is that our language allows for no differenciation between "Safety" and "Security", making my job difficult.

The english language allows us to differentiate between both terms and allows for easier meaningfull discussions. German and Luxemburgish just know the word "security", there is, to my understanding, no equivalent to the word "safety".

These words however do not have the same meaning.

Safety
The state of being protected from danger or harm. The condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury. 
Security
protection of a person, building, organization, or country against threats such as crime or attacks by foreign countries:
Many don't realise that this is part of the reason we often end up disagreeing although we fundamentaly agree, is just the wrong meaning associated to the word "security" and the way we use it.

So in the current debate about tracing apps, associated privacy fears and fear of lack of security controls - this becomes ;
  • Goal of a tracing application : Safety of Individuals and Society
  • Means to get there: Security and Privacy controls and mechanism are used to guarantee (to some degree) the  Privacy and Security of the unterlying data
  • Allowing for  : Safety through actions taken by analysing the data.

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