Data Privacy and the Pandemic of COVID-19.
Picture by Jones Day
Months have passed with the coronavirus pandemic and, in most countries, isolation and quarantine politics was the response. However, like everything in this new global era, COVID-19 is making huge waves in data analysis. One important aspect that ties into this current dire issue is how governments are fighting this pandemic. seem to be different approaches to pandemic and data privacy: total usage of it (China), late use (EU), and authoritarian usage or user data (Brazil). In this brief article, these actions will be investigated to see if they are beneficial for the population or not, the possible effects, and what’s going to happen in the future of Data Privacy from a Western legal point of view.
Firstly, we all know that the virtual platforms we use constantly extract our data. Whether it be an online recipe, a khan academy video, or your favorite vine compilation on youtube, the majority of people don’t read the Terms of Use and agree to give away your personal preferences all to web-based companies in the form of cookies and user data. Google Inc., for example, extracts a lot of data by Google Maps. Everything the user does in the app creates a complex data source. It’s possible to see what are the busiest traffic times and establishments and a lot of other important information. In the meantime, Google decides to make it available for everyone to have access to this data: governments, other companies, and the users of its platform. The result? Everyone can now see how the population is reacting to the isolation policy as well as the movement levels of any user. Well, these apps and technology could be a welcomed tool, if not used for other purposes that do not respect rights.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, many States have been assessing the effectiveness, security, privacy, and data protection aspects of digital solutions to address the crisis, like using navigation apps and even government symptom monitoring applications, like the European Union, South Korea, China, New Zealand, and others. China, for example, besides restricting mobility between the cities most affected and established quarantine, used, with almost any restriction, the technology to fight coronavirus and to restrict the agglomeration of people. The world saw flying drones alerting people to go back home and not be on the streets. By this means, China reined in the chaos that could have ensued with a lot of surveillance and restraint, according to the Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) which demonstrates how fast and effective those Chinese actions were. Meantime, some criticized China for doing such a thing.
On the other hand, Western Countries (with its opposite cultural and political history on this subject) are trying hard to keep track of the situation and keep people in quarantine without infringing Data Privacy rights. To these terms, Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, sums up what the EU is dealing with: “Digital tools will be crucial to protecting our citizens as we gradually lift confinement measures. Mobile apps can warn us of infection risks and support health authorities with contact tracing, which is essential to break transmission chains. We need to be diligent, creative, and flexible in our approaches to opening up our societies again. We need to continue to flatten the curve — and keep it down. Without safe and compliant digital technologies, our approach will not be efficient. Thus, some criticized the EU for doing such a thing, which delayed the protection and the monitoring of the situation, like Italy that sought only to mitigate the peak of the pandemic instead of stopping completely.
Well, looking at the bigger picture, we see that the world will be different (and it’s already different) with COVID-19. Several states are taking authoritarian actions, which may even be necessary, to a certain extent, if “quarantine” is seen as an authoritarian action. However, there must be a way to protect Data Privacy to fight against the Pandemic, and maybe, already authoritarian governments are taking advantage of this situation to implement these surveillance actions. Another example of the conflicts of Data Privacy and how to monitor the Coronavirus Pandemic is the Brazilian Provisional Measure number 954 of April 17th this year. It says, briefly, that all telephone companies ought to inform a Government Institute of Statistics all names, telephone numbers and addresses of their consumers, individuals or companies. This means that this Governmental Statistics Institute will know where exactly each person lives and, if combined with other information and sensitive data, could be a disaster in terms of Data Protection and Privacy, increasing the surveillance levels of Brazilian society. It is a huge step for an American Country. Even more, when spoken of in authoritarian times. As the NGO Future of Privacy Forum said, the alert is real: “we will have surveillance and tracking of people’s data never seen before”. However, there must be a way to protect Data Privacy to fight against the Pandemic, and maybe, already authoritarian governments are taking advantage of this situation to implement these surveillance actions.
Well, indeed, the world will not be the same. But if we continue to “agree” to these Terms of Use without reading it, or if we do not create laws to Protect Data Basis and its holders, it’s going to be even worse.
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