Pandemic Surveillance and Racialized Subpopulations: Mitigating Vulnerabilities in COVID-19 Apps
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SYMPOSIUM: COVID-19
Pandemic Surveillance and Racialized Subpopulations: Mitigating Vulnerabilities in COVID-19 Apps Tereza Hendl & Ryoa Chung & Verina Wild
Received: 19 May 2020 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Debates about effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have emphasized the paramount importance of digital tracing technology in suppressing the disease. So far, discussions about the ethics of this technology have focused on privacy concerns, efficacy, and uptake. However, important issues regarding power imbalances and vulnerability also warrant attention. As demonstrated in other forms of digital surveillance, vulnerable subpopulations pay a higher price for surveillance measures. There is reason to worry that some types of COVID-19 technology might lead to the employment of disproportionate profiling, policing, and criminalization of marginalized groups. It is, thus, of crucial importance to interrogate vulnerability in COVID-19 apps and ensure that the development, implementation, and data use of this surveillance technology avoids exacerbating vulnerability and the risk of harm to surveilled subpopulations, while maintaining the benefits of data collection across the whole population. This paper outlines the major challenges and a set of values that should be taken into account when
T. Hendl (*) : V. Wild Institute of Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Lessingstr. 2, 80336 Munich, Germany e-mail: [email protected] R. Chung Department of Philosophy, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada
implementing disease surveillance technology in the pandemic response. Keywords Pandemic disease surveillance . Digital health technologies . COVID-19 . Solidarity COVID-19 apps . Vulnerability . Racial inequality . Racialized subpopulations . Justice . Equity
Introduction Debates about effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have emphasized the importance of digital technology in releasing lockdowns while further suppressing the disease (Schaefer and Ballantyne 2020). Apps have played a crucial role in COVID-19 response in countries that have successfully bent the infection curve, such as Taiwan (Ienca and Vayena 2020), in combination with other measures, including social distancing and testing. Many countries have since been developing and implementing mobile tracing systems to tackle the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, amid discussions about the social impact of these technologies (Lucivero et al. 2020; Parker et al. 2020; UNESCO 2020). So far, debates about the ethics of COVID-19 apps have been largely preoccupied with privacy concerns, transparency and open source code, or data security (Ienca and Vayena 2020; Cho et al. 2020; Bock et al. 2020). Many have argued that COVID-19 data ought to be handled with respect for privacy and confidentiality (Ienca and Vayena 2020; Parker et al. 2020; UNESCO 2020). This is an important debate, as privacy rights
Bioethical Inquiry
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