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When Privacy Meets a Pandemic
Applying core international human rights principles to coronavirus-related privacy interferences
In the face of the devastating coronavirus pandemic, governments around the world are deploying an array of public- and private-sector technologies, causing great concern and alarm among privacy advocates worldwide. Many privacy experts are calling on the need to favor more privacy-preserving technologies, take measures to mitigate the risks to individual privacy posed by specific technologies, and impose purpose and storage limitations (among other restrictions) on the use of any personal data collected by the technologies that are ultimately deployed.
One example of a specific measure causing alarm is known as contact tracing, or the process of identifying individuals who may have come into contact with an infected person (in this case, someone who has tested positive for Covid-19). While many public health experts agree that contact tracing and identifying a “patient zero” as the source of an outbreak, where possible, can be important measures to control the spread of a virus, there is also countervailing research and reports that question the efficacy of this tactic.
The World Health Organization explains that “watching these contacts after exposure to an infected person will help the contacts to get care and treatment, and will prevent further transmission of the virus.” But what if there is no care or treatment available to those identified? What if we still have the same number of hospital beds, personal protective equipment (such as face masks and gloves), and ventilators available, as is likely to be the case in the United States?
The measure is self-evidently invasive. Even while there may be specific techniques to enhance or preserve individual privacy in employing contact tracing, we have to ask: to what end? What happens if we trace people with no ability to help them? What if it just doesn’t work in some contexts? We especially have to ask these questions as some experimental methods of contact tracing are being entrusted to large for-profit tech companies.
There are few privacy absolutists in a crisis. While no one seriously questions the need for interventions that can protect public health and…
