Privacy in the age of pandemics

How COVID-19 is impacting our idea of privacy

Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash

[Updated: Apr. 3,2020]

Amid the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Europe in lockdown, COVID19 cases and deaths still rising in most countries outside China, and people slowly realising the impact of such an unprecedented event, the world is desperately trying to identify any success cases to replicate. Who did it right? Who managed to contain it in time? How?

Few countries stand out, South Korea and Singapore are bright examples. One of the main reasons of their success (among others of course) is undoubtedly the early detection mechanisms through scaled testing and the extensive contact tracing through mobile phones. A piece by Reuters on the Korean Clusters demonstrates graphically how the authorities tracked a single patient (Patient 31). Israel is following a similar approach by mobilising its full surveillance apparatus.

I suppose few, if any, had doubts that technology could help us in these dire times. But how ready are we as citizens, communities and countries to accept a loss of our privacy, even in a such outstanding global crisis?

What about privacy?

Europe was always a bit more sensitive with privacy and in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A regulation that was in the making long before 2016, the year it passed the European Parliament floor. GDPR is based on the recognition of individual privacy as a human right. The regulation provides a rather extensive (albeit sometimes inflexible) framework based on 7 principles. Behind every principle lays a simple premise: have control over your data.

Data can be used in many ways. J. Scott Marcus published a concise piece on “Big data versus COVID-19: opportunities and privacy challenges” where he identifies three cases:

1. Strategic planning. In this case we collect data from all available services (incl. Social Media), sensors, telecom providers and use them to make better policy decisions. Data are anonymised. We care about trends not individuals.
2. Tracking of (possibly infected) individuals. China, S. Korea and Singapore have all employed a number of tools and techniques to track the spead of the virus. In Singapore, they use an app (TraceTogether). In Hong Kong, a wristband linked to a smartphone app. In South Korea, any data they can combine (credit card transactions, smartphone location data, CCTV video, even conversations with people) to produce a map of clusters and a tool to help track patients.
   See more details in this CNBC article on the Use of Surveilance (26.3.2020)
3. Advice to concerned and possibly infected individuals. Again this raises some important privacy issues but I assume no infected individual will refuse advise and help from the experts.

The latest update of the COVID-19 Digital Rights Tracker reports digital tracking measures in 19 countries.

Your mobile already knew

Nevertheless, long before the Coronavirus outbreak, the lockdowns and the need to trace back the COVID-19 cases, NYT published (Dec 10, 2018) a revealing article on location data collected by our mobile apps. It seems that your phone and your apps know almost everything about your movements, your habits and your preferences. And in most cases it is because you accepted and allowed it. How many of us did actually gave a second thought to the data companies collect about us when we use social media? How many have ever read the privacy policy of a service you are using? (think Microsoft or Google products). How many of us will object an aggressive tracking of people through location based data, if this will help them survive a pandemic?

Since the appearance of Internet and mobile and their convergence, we willingly sacrifice a level of our privacy for our conveniency.

New tools for the future

Don’t get me wrong. Privacy is a real issue. It maybe becomes less apparent in the extreme cases we live in, but we should never forget it. In an excellent recent essay Harari states “In this time of crisis, we face two particularly important choices. The first is between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment. The second is between nationalist isolation and global solidarity.”

In the aftermath of the crisis we should examine all tools, technologies, policies and legal frameworks that will help us be better prepared in the future epidemics. We already have a solid groundwork to start with and find the right balance between privacy and efficiency. Blockchain technology and Privacy by Design are just some ideas out of the top of my head.

As it happened after 9/11 or the financial crisis, we will undoubtedly need new tools, new regulations, new frameworks to comply with.

As citizens we should push forward and demand more transparency from our governments, better and clear information and hopefully a new vision. For our countries, for Europe and EU, for the world.

Update [Apr 3, 2020]

Not long after the above article, discussion on the subject is becoming more and more mainstream.

• See here how the Chinese are using their smartphones as a pass key for moving around the city. [APNews, 2.4.2020]
• Germany is already working on an app which will anonymously notify the user whether he or she has come into contact with someone who has COVID19. [Euractiv, 1.3.2020]. Unless this was an April’s fool hoax.
• A very interesting article published in NATURE “On the responsible use of digital data to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic” [NatureMedicine, 27.3.2020]

References and Recommended Reading

1. Privacy vs pandemic: government tracking of mobile phones could be a potent weapon against COVID-19, The Conversation, 27.3.2020
2. Big data versus COVID-19: opportunities and privacy challenge, Bruegel, 23.3.2020
3. COVID-19, Geo Tracking, and Privacy — Where to Draw the Line? Infosecurity Magazine, 27.3.2020
4. Yuval Noah Harari: the world after coronavirus, FT, 20.3.2020
5. ‘This could get Orwellian really fast’: COVID-19 could end privacy as we know it, Fast Company, 26.3.2020
6. Will Privacy be one of the victims of COVID-19? CEPS, 23.3.2020
7. 13 things tech companies can do to fight coronavirus, Tech vs. COVID-19, 11.3.2020
8. In Coronavirus Fight, China Gives Citizens a Color Code, With Red Flags, NYT, 1.3.2020
9. Singapore launches TraceTogether mobile app to boost COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, CNA, 20.3.2020
10. Singapore contained Coronavirus. Could other countries learn from its approach? WEF, 5.3.2020
11. Data Privacy Is a Human Right.Europe Is Moving Toward Recognizing That. Foreign Policy in Focus, 19.4.2018