The impact of COVID19 tracing and surveillance in our lives, by Gabrielle Berman from UNICEF

Gabrielle Berman is the coauthor of Digital Contact Tracing and Surveillance During Covid19. General and Child Specific Ethical Issues, one of the most relevant studies in the field so far.

She is also responsible for providing advisory and technical support to ensure the highest ethical standards within UNICEF’s research, evaluation and data collection and analysis programmes globally.

You are the co author of Digital Contact Tracing and Surveillance During Covid19. General and Child Specific Ethical Issues. Why do we need to address this question?

The working paper and brief produced by UNICEF are in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented rapid scaling up of technologies to support digital contact tracing and surveillance. The consequent collation and use of personally identifiable data has and continues to pose significant risks to children’s rights. 

This is compounded by the greater number and more varied players making decisions about how data, including children’s data, are used and how related risks are assessed and handled.

This means that we need to establish clear governance processes for these tools and the data collection process and engage with a broader set of government and industry partners to ensure that children’s rights are not overlooked.

The response to COVID-19 has seen an unprecedented rapid scaling up of technologies to support digital contact tracing and surveillance. Can you tell us how effective and widespread they are?

The critical issue is the lack of sufficient and robust evidence to assess the efficacy of these measures in context. 

Further and more robust evidence is required. This evidence must explicitly take into account not only the technologies but also uptake, social trust, use of manual contact tracing processes, availability of testing facilities and resources, and other broader social measures and community responses etc if we are to have rigorous evidence to support implementation and practice.

What are the implications for privacy as the linking of those datasets increases the likelihood that people will be identifiable and consequently, the opportunities for (sensitive) data profiling?

The implications for privacy are in part contingent on the nature of the data collection in the first instance but also and importantly, the governance structures adopted in relation to data ownership, responsibility for data processing, data access and sunset clauses to name but a few key considerations that ultimately impact the potential privacy implications. 

In which ways are children more vulnerable?

Children are more likely to be significantly impacted by privacy violations or infringements over a longer duration of their life span. Further, they frequently have less agency in relation to data processing and use of technologies to collect and process this data. The impacts of digital contact tracing and surveillance not only relate to potential access and misuse of the data or inappropriate practices such as public shaming. It is by virtue of the fact that children will have to live with a society that has experienced a restriction of civil liberties (including child specific safeguards) for an extended period. Consequently, and in the absence of vigilance and clear processes for dismantling surveillance infrastructure and products there is the possibility of longer term erosion of children’s privacy and rights.

These potential changes to privacy norms can and will occur in the absence of clear governance arrangements to dismantle and delegitimize the surveillance infrastructure once the pandemic has passed.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, at the beginning of 2020, 46.4% of the world population had no access to the internet. Therefore, digital solutions to contact tracing will only benefit a privileged subset of the world. How can contacts be traced for the rest?

This is a complex question that rests on awareness raising and explicit consideration of less networked, poorer communities that may exist not only in lower income countries but also in higher income countries. Assuming that these digital tools can significantly and positively impact containment within varied contexts, communities without these tools need to have access to traditional manual approaches, accessible testing facilities and clear social messaging and non digital supports to minimize transmission. In some instances this requires safe water sources and soap, in all contexts, community awareness raising, traditional manual approaches and accessible testing facilities and resources among other measures are required. Critically, all possible measures should be taken to ensure that the digital divide doesn’t further exacerbate disadvantages that already exist.