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273Privacy,
Ethics, and Contact-Tracing Apps
individualâs contacts, which could enable surveillance by the state or
a bad actor.22
The more rigorous the privacy protection, the less that data
are available to public health authorities. Some governments want
contact-tracing apps to also provide data that might be useful for
modelling and understanding the spread of COVID-19. Thus, not all
jurisdictions will opt for the least privacy-intrusive apps.
A privacy impact assessment (PIA) carried out on the Australian
COVIDSafe app23 raised several important issues relevant to all contact-
tracing apps. These included a need for data minimization in the col-
lection of registrant data, as well as in the sharing with authorities
of data about the duration and proximity of encounters after a posi-
tive test. The PIA recommended that if technically feasible, only those
contacts of sufficient proximity and duration to create risk of infection
should be reported. The PIA also recommended that the government
provide assurances that the data collected would be deleted after the
end of the emergency period. It also recommended obtaining free and
informed consent not just at the time of registration for the app, but
also at the point when authorizing public health officials to collect
digital handshake data (for example, the exchanged Bluetooth tokens)
after a positive test. The PIA raised concerns about obtaining appro-
priate consent from users under the age of 16. Finally, it recommended
clear communications about any future changes to the app beyond its
original purpose to protect against âfunction creep.â
AI-enabled contact-tracing apps will raise additional privacy
concerns, particularly since one of their goals is to collect symp-
tom data from users for analytics purposes. Potentially, researchers
could use these data (in de-identified format) in other AI applica-
tions. However, good privacy practice, requiring multiple consents
(for sharing of information on registration; for sharing contact details
22. Danny Palmer, âSecurity Experts Warn: Donât Let Contact-Tracing App Lead
to Surveillanceâ (7 May 2020), online: ZDNet <www.zdnet.com/article/security-
experts-warn-dont-let-contact-tracing-app-lead-to-surveillance/>.
23. âThe COVIDSafe Application: A Privacy Impact Assessmentâ (24 April 2020),
online (pdf): Australian Government Department of Health <www.health.gov.
au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/04/covidsafe-application-privacy-
impact-assessment-covidsafe-application-privacy-impact-assessment.pdf>.
For a critique of Australiaâs app, see Graham Greenleaf & Katharine Kemp,
âAustraliaâs âCOVIDSafe Appâ: An Experiment in Surveillance, Trust and Lawâ
(30 April 2020), online (pdf): University of New South Wales Law Research SeriesÂ
<ssrn.com/abstract=3589317>.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Titel
- VULNERABLE
- Untertitel
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Autoren
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Verlag
- Ottawa Press
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Seiten
- 648
- Kategorien
- Coronavirus
- International