Is tracking the location of COVID patients going too far? — Debrief’s Data News Round Up
This week in data news, Aarogya Setu, a COVID tracking app raises questions over ethical security standards regarding patient tracking. Forbes studies how data security needs extra precaution in healthcare services, and the Government Blockchain Association (GBA) studies how different levels of government can use blockchain to streamline their communication process.
A security expert says India’s contact-tracing app has flaws; New Delhi says they are ‘by design’
The question of protecting privacy, but also exposing location for tracking data rose in India recently. The Indian government released an app, Aarogya Setu, which has been questioned by numerous data privacy experts:
While some developers have argued that they need access to location data to track how outbreaks move and identify hotspots, privacy advocates have cautioned that if this data ever gets exposed, it could ostracize those who are affected.
Robert’s other concern is that Aarogya Setu, which was launched early last month, allows anyone to view the concentration of people in 500 meters to up to 10 kilometers who are either suspicious they have coronavirus, or are certain that they have the disease. He told TechCrunch that he was able to develop a script and view similar data for any nook and cranny of the world’s second most populous nation.
Read more in the article below:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/05/aarogya-setu-app-security-privacy-concerns-india-response/
How The Global Pandemic Is Impacting Data Privacy And Security
The tracking of COVID-19 patients is imperative to helping societies figure out if they are flattening the curve. However, patient anonymity and safety should remain at the top priority.
The below are recommendations from Forbes Council on how healthcare organizations can protect patient data:
• Structure properly. As I recently discussed, structuring data is an important first step, prioritized based on relevant categorizations like names, birthdates, addresses, symptoms and diagnoses.
• Encrypt immediately. It is critical to protect the data via encryption to ensure its privacy once it is in your environment. This process converts readable data into an unreadable form.
• Decrypt with care. Once data is ready for aggregation, extra precautions must be taken because this is when data is decrypted into a readable, usable form. To avoid privacy issues, it is critical to restrict access to only those who need to see this information.
Read the full article below:
The Government Blockchain Association (GBA) is working to connect the public and private sector to build blockchain applications for governments.
Different levels of government need safe ways of communicating with each other, as well as transferring resident files from city to provincial/state level. The GBA is promoting that governments adopt blockchain technology for a safer and easier way to transfer documents:
Governments have duplicate processes at all levels down to state, city, and county, and the GBA believes blockchain offers a means of streamlining all of this. If you’re applying for a building permit, for example, instead of having to file forms with multiple jurisdictions, you can share information across jurisdictions in a way that is secure and verifiable thanks to blockchain’s decentralized encryption
Read the full article below:
That’s all for this week!
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