Digital contact tracing: Privacy versus efficiency

Ieva Ilves
Additional contact information
Ieva Ilves: Ieva Ilves, Chancery of the President of Latvia, Pils laukums 3, Latvia

Cyber Security: A Peer-Reviewed Journal, 2021, vol. 5, issue 2, 102-112

Abstract: This paper discusses recently introduced digital technology to limit the spread of COVID-19 by tracing patients’ contacts backwards and sending warning of potential exposure to the virus. While the spread of COVID-19 had devastating consequences and certain technology was made available to limit it, quick and broad application was impeded by privacy and security concerns. The paper explores how the current digital contact tracing technology was designed to operate globally and address these concerns. Digital contact tracing has not reached the expected user rates in democratic societies, which limits its impact on public health. The author analyses the connection between privacy, trust and efficiency of the COVID tracing apps and illustrates the conflict whereby privacy-preserving technology denies access to any data and thus lessens the application of the tool for the benefit of public health. The author argues that with additional layers of privacy protection such as rule of law, transparency and democratic oversight, the minimum data necessary for public health would not compromise privacy yet would contribute to improving the technology and lead to better use in crisis situations such as a pandemic, environmental disaster or war. The research paper is a work in progress, as it is based on one-year experience since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, when the crisis is not yet over and partial data limits in-depth studies.

Keywords: digital contact tracing; privacy; security; COVID-19; democracy; pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hstalks.com/article/6676/download/ (application/pdf)
https://hstalks.com/article/6676/ (text/html)
Requires a paid subscription for full access.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:csj000:y:2021:v:5:i:2:p:102-112

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Cyber Security: A Peer-Reviewed Journal from Henry Stewart Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Henry Stewart Talks ().