Privacy vs. public health: Where contact tracing fits
May 7, 2020
Data privacy leaves room for gray areas. Public health is more black and white.
The question is, whether entities — governments, healthcare organizations, businesses — will exploitthat gray area by using tech-enabled contact tracing.
“We all want public health to win at this point in time,” said Mozilla Fellow Frederike Kaltheuner, during a live Twitter chat on April 28. Privacy is a “necessary ingredient” for trustworthy technologies, but alone, it’s insufficient to make technology responsible.
Contact tracing walks the line between privacy and responsible tech — a line Apple and Google are exploring. Apple and Android devices give the companies unrivaled consumer location data.