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Pandemic Innovation: The Private Sector and the Development of Contact-Tracing and Exposure Notification Apps

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2021

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Extract

From the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, technology companies have participated in the search for solutions to new challenges. One of these has been the need for public health authorities to engage in contact-tracing to help curb the spread of the disease. Manual contact-tracing for public health purposes is a well-established component of the management of epidemics and pandemics. Public health authorities identify infected individuals, question them about close contacts, and then reach out to those contacts with the appropriate public health advice. From the outset of the pandemic, many believed that technology could play a role in supplementing manual contact-tracing. How it could do so quickly became tied to issues of how it should do so, engendering a normative discussion affecting the partnership between business and government in the large-scale design and deployment of technology for public health surveillance.

Type
Developments in the Field
Information
Business and Human Rights Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 2: Special Issue: BHR Landscape after 10 years of the UNGPs: An Assessment , June 2021 , pp. 352 - 359
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Conflicts of interest: The author declares none.

*

Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy, University of Ottawa, Canada. My thanks to Ryan Mosoff and Tommy Friedlich for their research assistance. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Scotiabank Fund for the AI & Society Initiative at the University of Ottawa.

References

1 Victor Couture et al, ‘Measuring Movement and Social Contact with Smartphone Data: A Real-Time Application to COVID-19’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 27560 (July 2020), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3658856 (accessed 15 March 2021).

2 Amit, Moran et al, ‘Mass-Surveillance Technologies to Fight Coronavirus Spread: The Case of Israel’ (2020) 26 Nature.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Penny Daflos, ‘Credit cards, loyalty programs quietly used in B.C. contact tracing’, CTV News (22 May 2020), https://bc.ctvnews.ca/credit-cards-loyalty-programs-quietly-used-in-b-c-contact-tracing-1.4951402 (accessed 15 March 2021).

4 Daniel Estrin, ‘Israel’s Government Wants Spy Agency to Resume COVID-19 Tracing. Spy Chief Objects’, NPR (24 June 2020), https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/24/882741912/israels-government-wants-spy-agency-to-resume-covid-19-tracing-spy-chief-objects (accessed 15 March 2021).

5 See, e.g., Amit et al, note 2.

6 See, e.g., Alex Dubov and Steven Shoptaw, ‘The Value and Ethics of Using Technology to Contain the COVID-19 Epidemic’ (2020) 20:7 The American Journal of Bioethics; Teresa Scassa, Jason Millar and Kelly Bronson, ‘Privacy, Ethics and Contact-Tracing Apps’ in Colleen M Flood et al (eds.), Vulnerable: The Policy, Law and Ethics of COVID-19 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2020) 265–276.

7 Tang See Kit and Aqil Haziq Mahmud, ‘Singapore launches TraceTogether mobile app to boost COVID-19 contact tracing efforts’, Channel News Asia (20 March 2020), https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid19-trace-together-mobile-app-contact-tracing-coronavirus-12560616 (accessed 15 March 2021).

8 See ‘Apple and Google partner on COVID-19 contact tracing technology’, Apple (10 April 2020), https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2020/04/apple-and-google-partner-on-covid-19-contact-tracing-technology/ (accessed 15 March 2021); Google, ‘Exposure notifications: using technology to help public health authorities fight COVID‑19’, https://www.google.com/covid19/exposurenotifications/ (accessed 15 March 2021).

9 For a list of countries that have adopted the GAEN system, see Mishaal Rahman, ‘Here are the countries using Google and Apple’s COVID-19 contact tracing API’, XDA News (25 February 2021), https://www.xda-developers.com/google-apple-covid-19-contact-tracing-exposure-notifications-api-app-list-countries/ (accessed 15 March 2021).

10 Cristina Criddle and Leo Kelion, ‘Coronavirus contact-tracing: world split between two types of app’, BBC News (7 May 2020), https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52355028 (accessed 15 March 2021).

11 In Singapore, the TraceTogether app became mandatory for some categories of individuals (i.e., migrant workers) and in some contexts (e.g., schools and entertainment venues). Alfred Cang, ‘Singapore Schools to Make Virus Tracing Token App Mandatory’, Bloomberg (3 November 2020), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-03/singapore-schools-to-make-virus-tracing-token-app-mandatory (accessed 15 March 2021); ‘COVID-19: new app launched to help monitor and report migrant workers’ health status’, Channel News Asia (27 May 2020), https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-mom-new-app-migrant-workers-health-location-12775562, (accessed 15 March 2021). In Singapore, police have been given access to contact-tracing data. Matthew Mohan, ‘Singapore Police Force can Obtain TraceTogether Data for Criminal Investigations: Desmond Tan’, Channel News Asia (4 January 2021), https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-police-force-can-obtain-tracetogether-data-covid-19-13889914 (accessed 15 March 2021).

12 The GAEN adopted an approach proposed by a coalition of legal and technology experts, Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-3T), ‘Documents’, https://github.com/DP-3T/documents (accessed 15 March 2021).

13 See, e.g., Carrie Tait and Xiao Xu, ‘Why B.C. and Alberta aren’t signing on to the federal COVID app’, Globe and Mail (7 November 2020), https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-why-bc-and-alberta-arent-signing-on-to-the-federal-covid-app/ (accessed 15 March 2021).

14 ‘Google COVID-19 Exposure Notifications Service Additional Terms, s. 2(a)’, Google (4 May 2020), https://blog.google/documents/72/Exposure_Notifications_Service_Additional_Terms.pdf (accessed 15 March 2021).

15 Ibid, s. 3(c).

16 Ryan Chiavetta, ‘Google, Apple outline privacy considerations for Exposure Notification System’, International Association of Privacy Professionals (26 June 2020), https://iapp.org/news/a/google-apple-outline-privacy-considerations-within-exposure-notification-system/ (accessed 15 March 2021).

17 Daphne LePrince-Ringuet, ‘Contact tracing: how Ireland built its app and what it’s doing next’, ZD Net (22 July 2020), https://www.zdnet.com/article/contact-tracing-how-ireland-built-its-app-and-what-its-doing-next/ (accessed 15 March 2021).

18 Hayley Dixon and Mike Wright, ‘NHS considers U-turn on contact tracing app with switch to Apple and Google model’, The Telegraph (6 May 2020), https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/06/nhs-explores-feasibility-moving-contact-tracing-app-apple-google/ (accessed 15 March 2021).

19 See John Geddie and Aradhana Aravindan, ‘Singapore plans wearable virus-tracing device for all’, Reuters (5 June 2020), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-singapore-tech-idUSKBN23C0FO (accessed 15 March 2021); Ariel Bogle, ‘COVIDSafe app tests revealed iPhone performance issues at launch that weren’t shared with the public’, ABC News (17 June 2020), https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-06-17/covidsafe-contact-tracing-app-test-documents-rated-poor-iphone/12359250 (accessed 15 March 2021).

20 Matt Burgess, ‘There’s a Big Row Brewing over the NHS Covid-19 Contact Tracing App’, Wired UK (5 May 2020), https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nhs-contact-tracing-app-data-privacy (accessed 15 March 2021).

21 ‘Contact Tracing Apps in France’, Norton Rose Fulbright (2 December 2020), https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/-/media/files/nrf/nrfweb/contact-tracing/france-contact-tracing.pdf?revision=73eb9585-be68-4fde-82fd-d5362607b907&la=en-in (accessed 15 March 2021).

22 See, e.g., Matt O’Brien and Christina Larson, ‘Here come COVID-19 tracing apps – and privacy trade-offs’, AP News (5 May 2020), https://apnews.com/article/15c028c48502db395681ebca0099de5a (accessed 15 March 2021); Tom Blackwell, ‘COVID-19 contact tracing: Canadian company says authorities not interested in app that could help with virus’, National Post (9 April 2020), https://nationalpost.com/health/covid-19-contact-tracing-canadian-company-says-authorities-not-interested-in-app-that-could-help-with-virus (accessed 15 March 2021).

23 See, e.g., Mila’s COVI app: Hannah Alsdurf et al, ‘COVI White Paper’, Cornell University (27 July 2020), https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.08502 (accessed 15 March 2021).

24 Nevertheless, COVI was reportedly seriously considered by both the Canadian and Quebec governments. Kate McKenna, ‘Testing the public’s trust: Quebec premier mulls adopting contact-tracing app’, CBC News (19 May 2020), https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-premier-considers-covi-contact-tracing-app-1.5576122 (accessed 15 March 2021); Colin Harris, ‘Quebec won’t use COVID-19 notification app for now’, CBC News (25 August 2020), https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/federal-contact-tracing-app-quebec-1.5698725 (accessed 15 March 2021).

25 See Nearform, ‘Home’, https://www.nearform.com/covid/ (accessed 15 March 2021), noting that it has developed apps for nine jurisdictions and counting.

26 Vittoria Colizza et al, ‘Time to Evaluate COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Apps’, (2021) 27 Nature Medicine.

27 One study suggests that Bluetooth-based exposure notification settings produce fairly random outcomes. See Douglas J Leith and Stephen Farrell, ‘Measurement-Based Evaluation of Google/Apple Exposure Notification API for Proximity Detection in a Light-Rail Tram’, (2020) 15:9 PLoS One.

28 Dyani Lewis, ‘Contact-tracing apps help reduce COVID infections, data suggest’, Nature (26 February 2021), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00451-y (accessed 15 March 2021); Pablo Rodríguez et al, ‘A Population-Based Controlled Experiment Assessing the Epidemiological Impact of Digital Contact Tracing’ (2021) 12 Nature Communications.

29 Health Services Executive, ‘COVID Tracker App: Data Protection Information Notice (DPIN)’, https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/coronavirus/data-protection-information-notice.html (accessed 15 March 2021); National Cybersecurity Centre UK, ‘NHS COVID-19: the new contact-tracing app from the NHS’, https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/nhs-covid-19-app-explainer (accessed 15 March 2021).

30 Chris Wymant et al, ‘The Epidemiological Impact of the NHS COVID-19 App’, Github (9 February 2021), https://github.com/BDI-pathogens/covid-19_instant_tracing/blob/master/Epidemiological_Impact_of_the_NHS_COVID_19_App_Public_Release_V1.pdf (accessed 15 March 2021). At the time of writing, this study is not yet peer-reviewed.

31 ‘COVIDSafe helps slow the spread of COVID-19’, Digital Transformation Agency of the Australian Government (25 August 2020), https://www.dta.gov.au/news/covidsafe-helps-slow-spread-covid-19 (accessed 15 March 2021).

32 Kif Leswing, ‘As workplaces slowly reopen, tech companies smell a new multibillion-dollar opportunity: helping businesses trace coronavirus’, CNBC (10 May 2020), https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/10/coronavirus-tracing-for-workplaces-could-become-new-tech-opportunity.html (accessed 15 March 2021).

33 ‘A Guide to Navigating Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Employment Law Issues with COVID-19 Contact Tracing in the Private Sector’, Jones Day (July 2020), https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2020/07/a-guide-to-navigating-cybersecurity-privacy-and-employment-law-issues-with-covid19-contact-tracing-in-the-private-sector (accessed 15 March 2021).

34 See, e.g., Darrell Etherington, ‘Estimote launches wearables for workplace-level contact tracing for COVID-19’, TechCrunch (2 April 2020), https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/02/estimote-launches-wearables-for-workplace-level-contact-tracing-for-covid-19/ (accessed 15 March 2021).

35 Christian Tait, ‘Facility Mapping in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic’, ESRI (10 April 2020), https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-indoors/mapping/facility-mapping-in-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic/ (accessed 15 March 2021).

36 Kinexon, ‘World’s most trusted digital solution to mitigate the spread of COVID-19’, https://kinexon.com/safezone (accessed 15 March 2021).

37 See, e.g., Taylor Eric White, Carrie Hoffman and John L Litchfield, ‘Employer Use of Contact Tracing Apps: The Good, the Bad, and the Regulatory’, The National Law Review (7 July 2020), https://www.natlawreview.com/article/employer-use-contact-tracing-apps-good-bad-and-regulatory (accessed 15 March 2021).