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Digital Contact Tracking Technologies: Necessary to Combat COVID-19?

POL 106: Contemporary Challenges to Democracy: Democracy in the Social

Professor Ronald Deibert

By Candace Sara Ciju

TA: Abdus Shuman

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022

Consider yourself a doctor working during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Every

medical bed is swarmed with plagued patients, some of whom are on their deathbeds. Entire

families are sick, with the flu spreading quickly from person to person. Despite quarantine

and social distancing measures, the disease spreads at an alarming rate. As a doctor, all you

want is for some kind of innovation to monitor the spread of the virus, tracking those who

come into contact with the infected. Fast-forward 100 years into the future, and your wish has

come true, thanks to digital contact tracking technologies (DCTT). Digital contact tracing

uses technology to monitor and track contacts. Individuals download an app using DCTT

onto their smartphones to log their whereabouts and symptoms, or the app may use Bluetooth

or GPS. If the user is infected, the technology identifies close contacts and notifies those who

have been in contact with the user (Anglemyer et al. 2020). Several countries, such as South

Korea and Israel have implemented DCTT as part of broader disease surveillance and

containment efforts (Kahn 2020). DCTT and similar technologies are likely to become part of

the larger arsenal for future public health transmittable disease prevention and control, as well

as the COVID-19 response (Kahn 2020). As these technologies are utilised more extensively,

concerns about privacy, security, ethics, and governance are raised. In this paper, I contend

that using digital contact tracking technologies is crucial for containing and combating

COVID-19.

Despite being useful in slowing the spread of COVID-19, digital contact tracking

solutions are not universally inclusionary. Until recently, in some countries, such as the

United Arab Emirates, a 30-day negative PCR report was required before entering public

spaces, such as malls or supermarkets. Individuals may be required to reveal their COVID-19

exposure status before entering workplaces in some cases. Those who cannot afford an up-to-

date smartphone compatible with the country's national DCTT COVID-19 app may thus be
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denied employment as well as access to pharmacies and other indispensable businesses

(Parsons 2021). Not only is the percentage of smartphone owners in the world only between

42% and 45%, but there are also huge differences within individual nations (Sapiezynski and

Pruessing 2020). For example, in India and Indonesia, those under 35 are five times more

likely to own a smartphone than those aged 50 and up (Sapiezynski and Pruessing 2020).

Technologies that use contact tracing may also result in power abuse by law

enforcement officials, particularly in the form of carding, or the practice of randomly

demanding personal information without a valid reason. Carding has been disproportionately

used against historically racialized and marginalised groups. According to a Canadian Civil

Liberties Association study, members of the LGBTQ2S community, young people,

those with precarious housing, Black people, Indigenous people, and other racialized groups

have all been disproportionately targeted by law enforcement during the pandemic (Stay Off

the Grass: COVID-19 and Law Enforcement in Canada 2020). New technology makes it

possible to violate civil freedoms to a great extent when combined with state authorities in

exceptional circumstances. Although the use of emergency powers can be justifiable if they

are supported by science and the necessity to safeguard health, history demonstrates that

states frequently abuse their authority when an emergency arises (Molnar 2020). Surveillance

and control implemented by certain governments can instil fear and jeopardise civil liberties

(Whitelaw et al. 2022). Racial and religious minorities, as well as undocumented immigrants,

have a greater justifiable concern of their data being given to law or immigration enforcement

than the rest of the population (Anglemyer et al. 2020).

To guarantee the moral use of DCTT apps and services, safeguards must be put in

place. The use of contact tracing apps by government organisations as a COVID-19

containment strategy must be implemented in a minimally intrusive manner, and the

measures must be supported by science (Koczerginski 2021). Contact tracing should only be

used to protect the public's health and should not be used by law or immigration

enforcement. Identification of vulnerable populations is necessary, and protective measures

should be incorporated into contact tracing apps so that these populations can be protected

without sacrificing their ability to use the apps during the crisis (Koczerginski 2021). For

instance, testing should be made more widely available in vulnerable communities. State or

nation-wide oversight committees for digital surveillance must be formed to conduct ethical

and legal reviews prior to and concurrent with widespread use of DCTT (Kahn 2020).

Let’s face it, digital contact tracing is effective. According to a University of Oxford

study, initial media coverage emphasised that contact tracing applications would only be

useful if they were adopted at a rate greater than 60%. However, recent research shows that

even with a low adoption rate, the apps help reduce the number of COVID-19 cases (O'Neill

2020). Ronald Deibert discusses how our collective tendency has been to seek technological

solutions to difficult social and political problems. He advises us to resist the urge to turn to

"apps" and "platforms" when there may be more traditional and meaningful ways to address

societal issues and achieve our goals (Deibert 2020). However, I believe that technology is

far too useful to ignore in times of crisis. An analysis of the SwissCovid app found that it

increased the number of people quarantined in Zurich by 5% in September of 2020, and 17%

of these people were COVID-19 positive (Menges et al. 2021). Furthermore, in comparison

to manual contact tracking, the Radar Covid app from Spain alerted about twice as many

people to simulated infections (Rodríguez et al. 2021). Such data demonstrate the

effectiveness of technologies utilised in emergency situations, but as with any sort of

technology, privacy and security concerns persist. To strike a balance between the need for
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contact tracing and data protection, European authorities have proposed holding data for only

14 days on DCTT apps and lifting non-essential digital measures once the pandemic is over

(Whitelaw 2020). When dealing with the privacy and security issues of DCTT apps, the

Canadian COVID Alert App is a good system to model. The COVID Alert App does not

collect any personal information, such as your name or location, and instead relies on the

Google and Apple-developed exposure notification systems (Parsons 2021). The app's

creators also worked hard to ensure accessibility for Canadians with visual, hearing, or other

physical disabilities (Parsons 2021).

Privacy and inclusivity issues are the major obstacles to the use of digital contact

tracking technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of these challenges may be

overcome, as I explained in my paper, by redesigning apps and enacting privacy-protecting

legislation. The core privacy concepts of consent and trust, as well as all other applicable

requirements under Canadian privacy legislation, should be considered by government

institutions, businesses, and organisations that are engaged in the development, operation, or

support of contact tracing apps. Inclusivity and security thus become the "new normal."
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