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Contact tracing apps raise serious human rights concerns: please let’s stop to consider them in race to end #COVID19. The apps use mobile phones to flag proximity of two people, prompting s.o. who came into contact with a person with COVID-19 to self-isolate. 1/ https://twitter.com/marcelsalathe/status/1246352102059847680
But even if anonymized, in Singapore, S Korea, China we saw it can be associated with other data to (accurately or inaccurately) identify individuals. Individuals ID’ed based on locations – even mistakenly – were harassed and mobbed online. 2/ https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/ethics/halting-covid19-benefits-risks-digital-contact-tracing
For some populations, the risk of identification => risk of violence, discrimination: women and girls at risk of intimate partner violence (i.e., 1/3 of women and girls); LGBTIQ; PLHIV; refugees, migrants; racial or ethnic minorities; religious groups. 3/ https://www.hhrjournal.org/2020/01/a-democracy-deficit-in-digital-health/
Risk of identification (including mistaken id) based on locations is real in climate of COVID19 fear. In sensitive, politicized, polarized environments (conflicts, gang warfare) the risk increases 4/ https://www.icrc.org/en/document/digital-trails-could-endanger-people-receiving-humanitarian-aid-icrc-and-privacy
Digital was poorly governed before COVID-19 crisis: in race to partner w/ tech giants, there are tough questions about who owns data, who can sell it, which national laws govern it, what can be shared. 5/
If bad data, algorithmic discrimination lead to abuses, who will be accountable? 6/ https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/palantir-un-world-food-programme-data-humanitarians.html
Contact tracing through mobile apps may significantly expand government surveillance, but without investing in health coverage, equipment and care, we can’t track our way out of the crisis. Happy to discuss further. @accessnow 7/ https://www.accessnow.org/access-now-joins-100-organisations-in-telling-governments-dont-use-the-coronavirus-pandemic-as-cover-for-expanding-digital-surveillance/
