COVID-19, digital privacy, and the social limits on data-focused public health
responses
#MMPMID32836638
Fahey RA
; Hino A
Int J Inf Manage
2020[Dec]; 55
(?): 102181
PMID32836638
show ga
The implementation of digital contact tracing applications around the world to
help reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic represents one of the most
ambitious uses of massive-scale citizen data ever attempted. There is major
divergence among nations, however, between a "privacy-first" approach which
protects citizens' data at the cost of extremely limited access for public health
authorities and researchers, and a "data-first" approach which stores large
amounts of data which, while of immeasurable value to epidemiologists and other
researchers, may significantly intrude upon citizens' privacy. The lack of a
consensus on privacy protection in the contact tracing process creates risks of
non-compliance or deliberate obfuscation from citizens who fear revealing private
aspects of their lives - a factor greatly exacerbated by recent major scandals
over online privacy and the illicit use of citizens' digital information, which
have heightened public consciousness of these issues and created significant new
challenges for any collection of large-scale public data. While digital contact
tracing for COVID-19 remains in its infancy, the lack of consensus around best
practices for its implementation and for reassuring citizens of the protection of
their privacy may already have impeded its capacity to contribute to the pandemic
response.
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