We are all wondering how COVID-19 will end. We will not likely return to normal without a broadly distributed vaccine, which is a bracing proposition. It is also becoming increasingly clear that we will have to find a way to trace transmission and maybe even enforce individual quarantines in the interim. Contact tracing involves interviewing patients to collect information on all the people they have had sustained contact with and all the places they have been. It is laborious and error-prone because it is dependent on memory, interviews and detective work.
Before the government makes decisions that infringe on civil liberties through widespread digital surveillance, we need to think about the concessions we make during a time of crisis. Crises have long been used as an opportunity by governments and corporations to infringe on civil liberties in the name of public safety. Contact tracing using digital technology represents an opportunity to battle COVID-19 and reopen the economy, but its application will create unprecedented surveillance infrastructure beyond anything we have seen before. In recent days, the federal government has indicated that the states will be responsible for managing their plans to reopen their economies, which will result in a patchwork of contact tracing apps across the country. There are risks that such a network of policies, laws and collection techniques will muddy the data about COVID-19 nationally.
Credits:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/curbing-coronavirus-with-a-contact-tracing-app-its-not-so-simple-11588996809
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