Page - 270 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

VULNERABLE270 positive COVID-19 test.10 At that point, contact data would be shared with public health authorities, who would notify those judged to have been in sufficient proximity to the infected person. The ability of governments to find new purposes for shared data—including purposes in which individuals might be made iden- tifiable—was one reason why many privacy advocates pushed for a decentralized model. The decentralized model gained traction in the EU, although France has remained a notable standout. Germany reluctantly adopted a decentralized model, but added a feature to allow users to voluntarily contribute data for research purposes.11 The U.K. has opted for a centralized model.12 Both Australia13 and the Canadian province of Alberta14 have chosen models that are ini- tially decentralized but that give users diagnosed with COVID-19 the option to upload their contact data to a centralized system to enable contact tracing. The centralization or decentralization of data storage can impact the extent to which an app is integrated with public health efforts, as well as the extent to which de-identified data regarding the move- ments of the population can be used in modelling and other data analytics. AI-enabled Contact Tracing Another type of contact-tracing app would use artificial intelligence (AI) to supplement disease testing. In countries like Canada, where there have been substantial challenges with testing—including lack of testing equipment and slow lab results—even symptomatic 10. Leo Kelion, “Apple and Google Accelerate Coronavirus Contact Tracing Apps Plan”, BBC News (24 April 2020), online: <www.bbc.com/news/technology- 52415593>. 11. Douglas Busvine & Andreas Rinke, “Germany Flips to Apple-Google Approach on Smartphone Contact Tracing”, Reuters (26 April 2020), online: <www.reuters. com/article/us-health-coronavirus-europe-tech/germany-flips-to-apple-google- approach-on-smartphone-contact-tracing-idUSKCN22807J>. 12. Kieran McCarthy, “UK Finds Itself Almost Alone with Centralized Virus Contact- Tracing App that Probably Won’t Work Well, Asks for Your Location, May Be Illegal”, The  Register (5 May 2020), online: <www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_ coronavirus_app/>. 13. “COVIDSafe App” (last modified 27 May 2020), online: Australian  Government  Department of Health <www.health.gov.au/resources/apps-and-tools/covidsafe- app>. 14. “ABTraceTogether” (last visited 11 May 2020), online: Government  of  Alberta <www.alberta.ca/ab-trace-together.aspx>.